Death's Favorite Warlock

by Charles Dean

  Skill Specific Quest: Kill five unaware combatants with Knife Hand to increase your proficiency in the skill by 1. Leveling this skill through stat points will double the required number of kills to increase its proficiency.

  Lars stared at the skill on his stat sheet. Though the five kills had already netted him 41 points that he had spent—15 into Power, 15 into Resistance, and 11 into Speed—he now had 7 more to spend, and the Knife Hand skill required 10 points to upgrade to the next level. He wasn’t sure what would be a better decision at this point: leveling a skill he had just gotten so he would have a move to fight people with or putting more points into Resistance or Fortitude.

  Wait, how do I use the skill? Lars asked the voice in his head.

  That’s easy. You just want to use it. Once you want to use it, you will. Since you know the skill, you can use it whenever you like by merely wanting to do so.

  Lars looked at his hand and then at the boy, who was still clinging to his mother even in death. The kid was already dead, and Lars figured this was the best chance he was going to get to test out his new skill. Just thinking about it made the boy’s sides, neck, and head all begin glowing red. Lars focused on the boy’s head, and before he realized what he was doing, his hand shot out, palm flattened and fingers pointing forward. His hand glowed with the same purple Qi that he had seen enter his body with every kill as the Knife Hand pierced through the dead kid’s skull. The attack was fast and brutal, and as he withdrew his hand, Lars could see that the blow had gone not only through the boy’s skull but also into the mother’s chest, farther than his hand had actually reached.

  Was that my new strength thanks to the levels, or was that the Knife Hand? Lars wondered, staring at the damage he had done.

  The target was dead and thus definitely not capable of being aware of your presence. The skill showed you the boy’s known weak points, which were visible because you were already aware of the humanoid anatomy, by highlighting them in red. Since you struck one of the indicated targets, your attack did two times more damage than if you had struck without using the skill. If you weren’t as strong as you are now, with 33 Power, then it wouldn’t have done 66 Power’s worth of damage to the target. It’s a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B, as they say.

  As who says? Lars asked instinctively. He had never heard that expression before. Then again, it wasn’t the first time she had said something that he had never heard about as if it were common knowledge.

  If I were in your position, I’d go with Power. You’re not stealthy. You’re clumsy and idiotic at best. The chances of you pulling off a Knife Hand attack on a living and breathing target are low, so unless you want to save your points and level up your corpse-crushing skills just for giggles, I would recommend putting them into stats instead.

  Lars spared one last look for the two deceased as he stood up and walked toward the door. Wait . . . the prompt said that the skill came with a quest to level it without points. Does my current skill, uhh . . . the reading one . . . does it also come with a skill quest to rank it up in levels?

  Yes. Almost all skills can be leveled up by either putting points into them or by completing quests. You can check what the requirements are by looking at the stats menu and then requesting the information. Since you’re curious, this is the current quest for that skill:

  Skill Specific Quest: Read 1,000,000 words to increase the level of advanced reading by 1. Leveling this skill up with stat points will double the total required words to increase this skill.

  Hmm . . . what about stat points? he asked after looking things over. Are there quests that I can do to gain stat points for Power, Resistance, or whatnot without actually killing people?

  Yes, but you’re spending too much time on stats and skills. Don’t you need to go kill some people and rescue your mother?

  Right. Even though he was determined to save her, he was still nervous about the encounter. The last five people hadn’t been much help in alleviating that nervousness. Witnessing the carnage that Stage 1 through Stage 4 cultivators had suffered had left him incredibly concerned. He needed to rescue his mother, but that didn’t mean that he could. So, now, he was doing what was only natural for every nervous person: trying this best to over-prepare and distract himself.

  As he was about to leave the house, though, he heard the sound of voices.

  “Lookie, lookie! Seems like we found ourselves a straggler,” a gruff male voice taunted. “Kinda pathetic, though. Don’t think the boss will be interested in this one.”

  Rather than immediately leaving the building he was in, Lars pressed his back to the wall next to the door and did his best to not even breathe as he tried to hide.

  “Fine, then I’m pathetic,” Lars heard Ramon say. “Just let me go.”

  “I don’t know, boys, should we?” the voice continued.

  Lars took a chance and peeked around the doorframe in the direction of what was going on and discovered that Ramon had been surrounded by two men and a woman.

  “I mean, we came all this way, but we haven’t had our fun yet,” the same man said.

  “You call what you did to those people not having your fun?” Ramon spat back at the man. “If it wasn’t, then why the hell would you do that to people?”

  Watching the scene from afar, Lars couldn’t help but notice that the men didn’t look like bandits. Every story he had ever read depicted bandits dressed in a motley assortment of loose, mismatched outfits, yet these three wore matching white cloth robes with blue stripes around the hem of every piece of fabric that looked very much like uniforms.

  Wait, those robes, aren’t those only worn by . . .

  Sects. Those are the robes of a sect member. The fact that they have nothing but plain white robes with no visible medallions, markings, or fancy colors implies that they aren’t high up in the sect. They might be weak. You should kill them.

  What? I’m not that strong! I can’t kill them! Lars protested. Even though he vehemently disagreed with her, his feet were already moving. He doubted he could pull it off, but he knew that he had to try. If he didn’t, he’d never have a chance of rescuing his mother.

  “Those weaklings? We didn’t do that,” the man laughed. “That was our senior brothers. They always get first pickings when dealing with pathetic mortal cultivators such as yourself.”

  “Yeah, that’s why they stuck us with looting detail,” the woman grumbled. “They get to have fun while we are forced to go around collecting baubles and trinkets for the sect.”

  “Well, we’ll have some fun today, sis, so don’t worry about it,” the man responded. “After all, how much do you think a porcupine's tail is worth?”

  “Qilian,” Ramon quickly corrected.

  “What was that, boy?” the man punctuated his question by stepping forward and punching Ramon in the stomach. Lars wanted to act right then, to help the guy who had gone out of his way to stick with him despite the obvious reality of eventually running into this exact scenario, but he was still too far away.

  “I’m a qilian.” Ramon paused in the middle of the sentence to spit out a mouthful of blood. “My lineage is the proud qilian line, not some stupid porcupine, so get it right!”

  “Qilian? You? Ha ha!” the man who had just hit Ramon laughed in his face. “If you’re a qilian, then I’m not chameleon blooded; I’m dragon blooded! She’s not parrot blooded; she’s actually imbued with the vermillion bird’s legendary blood—or, heck, maybe it’s a phoenix. Kid, you’re a freaking porcupine. How about you learn it?!” The man ended his final sentence by striking Ramon so hard in his face that the young man practically collapsed on the spot.

  Ramon began picking himself up, and his eyes met Lars’s.

  Lars was slowly moving closer and closer, doing his best to stay in the shadows and hug the walls of the buildings as he approached the trio.

  “Well, kid, you gonna call yourself a qilian again? Have you learned your lesson?” the man asked as he held up a
fist threateningly.

  “Not much of a lesson to learn. We’re still going to beat him up and sell him with the rest of the people,” the other man, a canine-eared cultivator, added while sneering at Ramon.

  “No, he’ll learn this lesson before we hand him over to one of the inner-sect disciples to sell,” the first argued. “Can’t have slaves acting egotistical. They must learn their place!”

  “I. Am. A. Qilian!” Ramon shouted defiantly, slamming his needle-covered tail on the ground.

  For some reason, no one had noticed Lars. All the years of trying to avoid attention when passing through the village so that he didn’t have to put up with bullying had finally paid off, and he was a few feet away from the man who kept running his mouth like he was boss of the world.

  Do it. Kill him. Kill him for me. Kill him. Kill him beautifully and quickly!

  The voice urged him forward, and for the first time in his entire life, Lars didn’t hesitate to follow her command. He dumped every one of the remaining 7 points he had into Power and pictured the skill Knife Hand. Zeroing in on the back of the closest figure’s head, his hand shot out of its own accord. Covered in the weird red tincture that stained his vision around the vital points of the enemy, the enemy’s weak spot looked so sweet and inviting as the fingers of his flattened hand raced toward their target. His attack fell short a good half a foot away from the guy’s head, but he felt the purple Qi as it exploded outward, and a burst of energy flew out of his hand and struck the cultivator in the back of the skull.

  The damage must have been severe because the reaction was instant. The man screamed out for a split second and then fell forward toward Ramon. Ramon reacted quickly by swinging his tail around like a weapon and striking the dog-eared man across the jaw.

  Lars, still in full combat mode, jumped on top of the man that he had knocked down and used Knife Hand a second and then a third time, striking him again in the back of the head with each blow. He wanted to kill the man before he could recover, but the killing blow didn’t come in time. The bird-blooded woman swept forward, kicking Lars so hard in his ribs that he flew into the air as the wind was knocked out of him, and dropped him from 10 health to 4.

  Since he had already committed to following the voice, and the voice wanted the same thing as he did for once, he did exactly as she said. The moment he stopped rolling across the ground, Lars popped up and started scrambling straight back for the nearly dead man. Thankfully, he was still on the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth.

  “You think I’m going to let you take his life?” the woman demanded, jumping in front of Lars. Her feet touched down for one brief instant before she lifted off again, throwing a roundhouse kick.

  Dodge that attack! She’s going to try and kick us again. It must be all that bird DNA in her! She’s favoring her feet as a primary weapon!

  Lars internally cursed at the voice and grumbled about how things were easier said than done as he did his best to stop his momentum and jump backward before the foot struck him. The strike came close—it passed less than an inch away—but in place of a deadly blow that would have surely crushed his rib cage and killed him, only a light breeze from the foot moving too fast struck him instead.

  As she finished her spin, both feet once more on the ground, Lars had already begun to make his own move, brushing past her. She threw out a jab to try and catch him as he ran by her, but he was able to shift to his right just enough that her hand barely missed the side of his face.

  He didn’t want to risk leaving himself vulnerable again by jumping on the guy’s back, so instead, Lars did the one attack that he knew wouldn’t compromise his mobility: a running kick. Visualizing the enemy’s head like it was one of the balls he used to play with as a kid, kicking it back and forth with his mother when no one else would play with him, he struck the downed man’s face with the top of his foot as hard as he could.

  It nearly tripped him to do so while running, but it worked. He could feel and hear a cracking from what was likely the man’s skull, and the notification he had been hoping for appeared.

  Congratulations. You have successfully killed Rickett. You have gained 27 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Fire Qi has increased by 16.

  “NO!!!” the woman screamed when she saw what Lars had done.

  Quickly! Raise your Fortitude. It won’t replenish lost hit points, but it will increase your total health pool by an equal amount to the total number of points you put into Fortitude.

  Thankful for the small distance that was currently between him and the woman, Lars instantly brought up his stat sheet and began dumping the points into Fortitude. Every time he increased the stat by one, it felt like the spot in his ribs where her foot had struck him before hurt a little less.

  He only had 4 health left, so as long as her attack strength didn’t miraculously go up, he didn’t need 27 points into Fortitude to survive the next hit, only 9. Nine points would let him survive two kicks and let him put the rest into Power and Speed so that he could focus on trying to kill her before she murdered him. After settling on this decision, he stopped at 9 points placed into Fortitude and split the remaining up between Speed and Power, putting 10 points in the former and 8 in the latter.

  “Come on! You’re next,” Lars taunted, extending his hand. He didn’t know why, but for some reason, his right hand extended in the position for the Knife Hand skill, pointing at her with all four fingers and his thumb.

  The bird-blooded woman shrieked loudly and sprinted straight at him. She lifted her body into the air and actually managed to do a flying kick aimed at his chest.

  A flying kick? Is she a moron? Kill her!

  Lars didn’t have to be told what to do. He stepped as quickly as he could to his right and struck out with his hand, activating the Knife Hand skill and hitting her in the side. He didn’t deal any bonus damage since she wasn’t incapacitated and was fully aware of him, but Lars felt like his attacks were more accurate when he was using the skill than when he acted on his own.

  Every time he hit her, he could see her wince. Landing hard on the ground after the failed flying kick, she immediately went into a lower leg sweep. Lars tried to dodge it by jumping in the air since he couldn’t back up fast enough, but he was too late. Her blow carried the bottom half of his body in the direction of her attack and sent his upper half spinning face-first into the ground.

  She attacked again before he could even spit the grass and clumps of dirt out of his mouth. He rolled away from her just in time and barely avoided another kick that would have likely sent him flying like her first attack had done.

  She lashed out with yet another kick as he popped back up, this time directed at his left knee. Lars shifted his body and dodged the attack, automatically retaliating with a strike aimed toward her knee, but she was too fast.

  Not wanting to let her get the advantage, he tried to move to the right of her again, throwing out another strike, but she turned faster than he did, leaving him at a loss as he did his best to dodge yet another kick by backing up.

  “WHO IS THE PORCUPINE NOW?!!” Ramon shouted as the guy’s large quill-covered tail slammed down into the woman’s back. Her own brightly colored green, blue, and red tail feathers did little to stop his attack, and the impact alone knocked her forward.

  She turned to face Ramon, and as she did, Lars saw parts of her left side light up red in his vision. He had already activated Knife Hand without even realizing it, and before she could even get a good look at the assailant who had turned a good chunk of her body into a pincushion, dozens of quills still stuck in it and blood already leaking out, Lars was there, landing a strike in her kidney. “Stop!” the woman yelled. The one-two combination between Lars and Ramon quickly left her hunched over on the ground. “I give up. I give up. Don’t kill me.”

  “Say it!” Ramon demanded. “Say what I am, or I’ll kill you right here!”

  “You’re a qilian! A qilian, okay? Please, just don’t kill me,” she beg
ged.

  “Fine,” Ramon harrumphed.

  Still in shock because he didn’t expect Ramon to fare well against his own attacker, Lars looked over to see that Ramon had shredded his opponent with a tail swipe to his face and neck. Their struggle had likely lodged the quills deeper and deeper into him, and a crimson pool from the dozens of spines bleeding him out now covered the rest of his body.

  “Who are you people?” Lars asked, looking down at the woman. She was staying perfectly still, likely not wanting to let the needles dig any farther into her flesh.

  “We’re— We’re the Sect of Falling Flowers,” she managed, her face scrunching up as she forced out the air needed for the words. “We didn’t choose to attack this town. One of the elders said we had to.”

  “An elder said you had to?” Lars asked. He bent over and pushed one of Ramon’s quills farther into her lower back. He was frustrated. He wanted to kill her. She was the bad guy, and killing her would feel good. He’d get more stat points too. There were so many reasons he could think of to kill her, a hundred justifications, but he was stuck listening to her dumb excuses instead.

  You could just do it anyway. Just kill her. Ramon won’t mind.

  The voice fed into his desire, but he did his best to silence it. Ramon was, at the moment, his only remaining companion, and he did still need information from her.

  “Yeah, we’re outer-sect disciples, the lowest of the low. We can’t disobey. The elder told us that we had to either kill or capture everyone and take everything of value. He made up some stupid excuse that”—she took a break from speaking to catch a ragged breath—“he had divined that a serious clan-destroying threat would originate from this town. It was hogwash, and we knew it, but outer-sect disciples have to do what they’re told.”

  “You might have to do what you’re told, but you didn’t have to torture or bully. You went above and beyond,” Ramon said. “Your cruelty speaks volumes. Is there anyone in the town left?”