Erich dropped down to one knee in the river, cupping his hands in the water and splashing it over his face. It smelled awful, but then again so did everything. Ten feet away an eel-like imp jetted through the water, ignoring Erich as he refilled the last of his canteens.

  He stood up, enjoying the sensation of the rapidly drying water on his skin. A glance up at the sky confirmed his suspicion. The steady red light that filled hell was unchanged. As dangerous as nightfall could be, Erich missed it almost as much as he had missed the day when he was fighting in the unclaimed lands between worlds.

  Right now, Erich didn’t know whether he should be awake or sleep. Energy from the fruit was still buzzing in Erich’s system and he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes closed, but at the same time, his mental exhaustion from constant near death experiences was starting to build up.

  It was a strange feeling. He couldn’t close his eyes, but at the same time it was growing harder and harder for him to concentrate on his surroundings. Under ordinary circumstances, Erich would simply think that his situation was strange and move on with his life. In hell, he didn’t really have that luxury.

  Inattention could easily lead to death. Poison and dehydration were perpetual concerns, but Erich had been ambushed by imps at least three times. Worse, Sathis had hinted that there were actual lesser demons patrolling the valley. As dangerous as the flocks of low level imps were, a single demon could kill and devour all of them easily.

  In short, Erich wasn’t in any position to continue his expedition. Rather, he needed to find a spot to burn off his excess energy so that he could rest or meditate. He could set out again once he was in more complete control of his body.

  Erich popped the cork back in his canteen and stood up. There were a couple more of the eel creatures swimming in the water, and they didn’t seem to be avoiding him any longer. He walked back to the shore and slipped his water flask into his backpack before returning to the path he’d cut through the forest. There was no need for him to linger in the river long enough for the monsters to find their courage. He could always use more aether, but it wasn’t worth picking a fight right now, especially a fight that would involve him attacking monsters on their own home turf.

  He jogged out into the drylands that surrounded the dungeon. It only took him a couple of seconds to locate the markers left by the cinderborn.

  Sweat beaded Erich’s forehead as he loped along the smuggler’s trial. Given hell’s signature extreme heat, he probably should have walked, but he could still feel the fruit churning in his gut. It sent constant bursts of energy running through his body, but at the same time it also felt like he had eaten spoiled meat.

  Nausea roiled in Erich’s intestines, but he still couldn’t stop himself from jogging. Something would have to give sooner or later, and all he could really hope for was to find a safe spot to relieve himself once the time came for him to pay the price for his poor dietary choices.

  So he ran, eyes flicking back and forth as he paid attention to the rocks around him while also looking for a safe spot to isolate himself so that he could recover. At least one boulder moved a little as he jogged, but the rock imp couldn’t move fast enough to threaten Erich so long as he kept moving.

  He’d barely been running for a minute when his eyes narrowed. Ahead, a strangely familiar slug was pulling itself across the rocks. Erich didn’t know how he knew that it was the same one that had stolen one of the fruit from him, but one look filled him with absolute certainty as to the monster’s identity.

  It slithered along blue rocks that surrounded one of the strange burbling puddles. Erich frowned. He’d never seen any imps without camouflage out in the open before. There were clearly a couple of the rock imps lurking around the rocky desert that surrounded the river, but they made sure to hide from the swarms of flying monsters that seemed to pass overhead once every couple of hours, picking the hillsides clean.

  Despite that, the slug was out in the open, ignoring everything around it as it steadily slurped its way along the rocks, far from any cover. He slowed slightly, jogging in place as he squinted at the slug.

  The monster didn’t seem to notice him. It didn’t really seem to notice anything really. Strange dark veins covered its oily surface, pulsing gently as it forged onward toward-

  Erich frowned. There really wasn’t any mistaking it. The slug was inching toward the light blue pool that sat at the center of the discolored section of the rocky landscape.

  He’d avoided those areas until now because they looked suspicious. Given how dangerous everything else in hell was, approaching the bright blue areas would have been beyond stupid, like voluntarily touching a red hot frying pan and then acting surprised when your hand was burnt.

  Acid hissed behind the slug, causing the blue rocks to bubble and smoke as it finally reached the pool of liquid at the center of the patch of cyan stone. It didn’t slow or pause, instead immediately throwing its body into the basin.

  For a second nothing happened. Erich’s gut roiled, and he felt like he was going to be sick. Then, just as he thought he was going to throw up, the puddle of light blue fluid exploded. Thick blue goop sprayed upward.

  Erich took a step backward. Both the nausea and his excess energy had dissipated in a second. Instead, he backpedaled away from the geyser of chunky blue water, careful to stay well out of its range.

  Droplets hissed as they hit the stone, smoking slightly as they splattered across the ground. With a loud ‘thwap’ something much larger hit the rocks some fifty feet away from Erich. He took a half step forward, trying to figure out the origin of the noise as he squinted through the constant rain from the sulfurous geyser.

  Another splat drew his attention, and then another until it was hard to hear anything over the cacophony. Erich frowned as he watched the scene. Slugs. All of them smaller than the imp that had thrown itself into the puddle, but there were already about twenty of the monsters on the ground and even more raining down from above.

  Even as Erich watched, two of the slugs began to fight. Neither was damaged by the acid covering the skin of the other, but that didn’t stop them from taking huge bites out of their opponent’s hide.

  The geyser began to sputter out, but more and more of the acidic slugs were encountering each other. All over the patch of cyan rock the imps were tearing into each other in an orgy of destruction.

  Erich backed away, returning to his walk along the smuggler markers. He still needed to find someplace safe to rest before too long, but he couldn’t help but feel a little worry trickling in. There wasn’t any question in his mind that the flowers were messing with his mind. With every step he took, Erich could feel them pulling at him, begging him to go back into the forest so that he could throw himself on the carnivorous plants.

  That wasn’t what the slug did. Instead it left the jungle and threw itself into one of the burbling pots of blue liquid. Now, there were slugs everywhere. Erich didn’t know exactly what to make of it, but he couldn’t help but feel like they were connected.

  Now that he thought about it, it didn’t sound bad. He didn’t need to go into the forest after all. He could just walk into the next breeding zone and give himself to the brood pit. Obviously he couldn’t use the one where the slaama imp had just reproduced. It was out of aether.

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  The next pit wasn’t that far ahead. Erich had absorbed the seeds from four plants. There would be more than enough to produce powerful offspring that could easily carry the seeds to either end of the valley, greatly expanding the root network that was the core of the forest. After his descendents finished fighting, they might even evolve into a lesser demon.

  The prospect filled him with excitement. Strong spawn, capable of defeating and devouring all of the other-

  He froze, hands trembling.

  “By the blood of the angels,” Erich whispered, reaching up with his left hand to touch his face. There was something about the gentle contact that grounded him, it made the entire situation seem more grounded and real.

  “The flower isn’t in my head,” he mumbled the words, turning back to stare at the bloodbath surrounding the geyser. “It’s in my stomach. The seeds are what’s changing me. They-”

  His gut lurched. The nausea that had been nagging him before hit with a vengeance. Erich could feel all of the seeds twisting in his stomach, aether burning him like hot coals as it went to war with his consciousness.

  He stumbled, dropping to one knee as the sensation began to overwhelm him. Deep inside of Erich, his image seemed to shift. The stars shone in the sky and the pine trees shook in the storm. A wave of soothing energy ran through his body.

  It wasn’t enough to completely shake off the nausea, but Erich was able to stand, and that was all he needed. Almost immediately, he took off in a run, frantically scanning the walls of the valley as he tried to suppress the sensation of the seeds kicking and slashing at the walls of his stomach.

  Erich made it about five minutes before he spotted what he needed and changed course. It wasn’t much of a cave, barely even an opening in the rock face about three and a half feet by three and a half feet, but it was big enough for him to crawl inside.

  Rocks scraped at his hands and knees, but Erich didn’t have the time to worry about that. As soon as he was fully inside the crevice, he dropped to the ground and curled into the fetal position, rocking gently back and forth as his body went to war with itself.

  He could feel the seeds pulsing and raging in his stomach. They alternated between demanding that he run back into the wastes and throw himself into a brood pit. Erich wasn’t sure whether he needed to vomit or soil himself, but something needed to leave his body, and it needed to be removed as soon as possible.

  The slug wasn’t a coincidence. It ate the seeds from the fruit and then less than an hour later it was killing itself in order to create a new generation of imps. Moreover, Erich couldn’t forget the alien instincts that had filled him when he was near the breeding zone.

  Erich had stumbled into the middle of hell’s overcomplicated and parasitic reproductive patterns, and it wasn’t a healthy place for him to be.

  Tendrils of white hot pain began to radiate from his stomach, inching their way through his body. The seeds were sprouting. He didn’t know how else to describe the sensation. Erich could feel each individual burning root as they embedded themselves in his muscles. It hurt more than any injury that he’d received in training or combat.

  He curled tighter into the fetal position, his mind going practically blank as he felt the demonic plant writhing within him. It demanded that he return to the breeding zone. The thought hammered into him over and over again until there was nothing left of Erich but the pain and alien urges.

  Luckily, Erich was wracked with spasms and cramps. It was impossible to know if he would have been able to resist the desire to destroy himself at the flower’s commands if he were able to walk.

  Part of him wanted to give in anyway. He knew instinctively that the second he touched one of the spawning pools, he would die. But, the pain was blinding. It found every crack and crevice of his body and filled them with scalding jets of agony. If he gave in it would stop.

  It might have been the parasite, it might have been something that had always been inside him, but some voice deep inside Erich wanted to make that trade. It whimpered, pleading with him to make the pain stop. The cost didn’t matter. All it wanted was for him to close his eyes one last time and for everything to go peaceful and dark.

  He reached deep into himself, grabbing the traitorous thoughts by their throats and squeezing.

  A feral snarl twisted Erich’s face as his eyes snapped open. There was only the ceiling of the tiny cave about him, sinister and blood red in the faded light of hell, but the crags and jagged lines of the stone gave him something to focus on.

  His eyes followed their lines, counting the ridges and spikes as the pain narrowed his vision. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but he began to take control of his own mind. The urge to run out of the tunnel and throw himself into a pool or flower faded slowly. It was still there, but Erich could control it.

  He exhaled, his breath shaky as the seeds wracked his insides. The roots had spread, snaking out to cover most of his body. They didn’t hurt quite as much as before, but at the same time, there was no way of knowing if that was a good thing or not. After all, the final step of the poison he had encountered in the jungle was numbness as well. For all he knew, the pain was only fading so that he wouldn’t feel the flower starting to sprout through his skin.

  That uncomfortable thought shook him. The ceiling above him blurred and he lost his count. Suddenly, the urge to crawl out of the cave and submit himself to the spawning pits returned.

  Before he could regain control on his own, a comforting wave of mana flowed out of his image. Almost immediately his unsettled thoughts disappeared and the pain lessened.

  Erich turned his gaze inward. The fire and lighting of his image seemed fixed and distant, but both the trees and stars above were as vivid as if he were mere feet from him. He could smell the smoke and pine. He could see the stars twinkling above him.

  Both of them seemed to reach out to Erich, wrapping their mana around him protectively. He welcomed the sensation like a starving man eating his first proper meal in a week. Cool, soothing energy flowed into his body.

  The growth of the roots slowed and ground to a halt.

  Air rushed into Erich’s lungs with a gasp. He hadn’t even realized that he was holding his breath. Eyes closed, Erich focused on his image, trying to draw out as much of the mana as possible.

  Soothing energy surged through his body. Light mana clashed with the parasite’s roots. Erich could feel something inside the plant fighting back, struggling against his body as he sought to purge it. The burning tendrils thrashed as they retreated, tearing muscle and scorching sinew as they were forced back inch by inch.

  Life mana followed in its wake, healing the wounds and scars left behind by the war between Erich’s other mana and the remnants of the fruit. Deep in his gut, the seeds throbbed, pushing up against Erich’s power.

  It was as if the flower had realized that Erich was winning and mounted a counter attack. HIs mana sputtered inside his body, faltering slightly as the demonic energy pressed against it.

  Another spasm went through his body, and Erich could feel tears welling up in his eyes as his magic fought with the demonic plant. Pain erupted inside him once again, erasing the moment of respite that his mana had earned him.

  Erich’s vision went white. There was nothing left but his image and the pain gnawing at the edges of his consciousness. Distantly he could feel the four burning weights of the seeds as they struggled deep in his stomach.

  He focused on the image, on the sight of the stars glittering in the sky and the smell of the pine trees. Mana flowed out of his image and into his body, strengthening it even as it warred with the parasitic energy from the fruit.

  Slowly, Erich’s body began to overcome the seeds’ counterattack. The burning roots sprouting from the lumps of power in his body began to retract as his mana devoured them.

  Aether trickled into his image. More than he had ever earned at once. It was like he was slaughtering his way through a crowd of imps. With each passing second, the image sharpened, strengthening the root of his power and skill as swordsman.

  A shudder ran through his body as he passed some invisible threshold. His image seemed to surge in size, growing slightly dully and more indistinct even as it grew.

  The second tier. It was exactly how Elias and Harold had described it. Obviously, he wasn’t a proper second tier warrior yet. The aether had triggered an evolution in his body, making him stronger, faster, and more resilient, but without a proper technique to channel his new mana into, he could only be considered to be halfway to the next level.

  He took a deep breath, finally opening his eyes. The parasitic seeds were still in his stomach, twisting and churning as they sought to free themselves from the grip of his mana. The struggle against it wasn’t over, but Erich had clearly turned a corner. He was no longer at any risk of dying to the invader, rather it was little more than a source of aether and sustenance for him to consume as he grew stronger.