Erich didn’t stand up. The mere thought of it sent a shiver down his spine. The flower above him had long since opened and its petals were splayed out serenely, not giving any hint that it had just skewered and eaten a pair of imps.

  He took a deep breath, crawling cautiously back toward the path he had hacked in the forest. It was still there, but after only an hour or so, the vines were beginning to creep up the trees and stretch themselves across the gap.

  Once he was far enough away from the flower to not trigger its tongue, Erich stood up, trying in vain to brush the mud and imp ichor off of his armor. After a couple seconds of failed attempts, he gave up, instead creeping slowly back toward the river.

  This time, Erich was much more careful with the vines. It took almost twice as long for him to trim the greenery off of all the nearby trees, but he managed to make it to the shore of the river without coming within a foot of the poisonous thorns that had ruined his previous expedition.

  By the time he reached the water, Erich was sweating again. He surveyed the sky for almost a minute to make sure that there weren’t any imps nearby before filling all of his canteens, one by one.

  He took a drink and grimaced immediately. The water was still as foul as ever, but Erich was a bit more used to it now so he could keep it down despite the unpleasant kick to the gut. Almost immediately, he wanted to eat the fruit once again. It was juicy enough to sate his thirst, and it tasted phenomenal. Exactly the opposite of the sulfurous water.

  Erich frowned slightly, the canteen still touching his lips. He wasn’t thirsty or hungry. Why was it that he wanted to eat more?

  The cork squeaked slightly as he pushed it back into the top of the flask. Erich turned back toward the path out of the narrow jungle, a troubled look on his face. He could still taste the fruit on his tongue, and he could still feel the rush of energy it had given him with each step he took.

  He carefully began walking back out of the jungle. There was no way that his craving was natural. For all of the good the fruit had done him, it was almost certainly incredibly addictive. Even back in Burrwood, it would take the addicts who chewed rakk stalk weeks if not months of consumption before they would begin to feel the effects of withdrawal.

  Erich slowed as he passed the clearing with the flower in it. The purple petals were spread out invitingly, and he couldn’t help but think about how soft and inviting they were. More than anything he just wanted to walk into the opening and lay down on them. It had been more than a week since he’d slept in a bed, and even then it was one of the narrow, stark wooden framed beds provided to soldiers.

  It didn’t smell like corpses anymore. Instead the entire clearing smelled like lilacs. An empty smile formed on Erich’s face as he remembered the fields just outside Burrwood where bushes were planted alongside the road. He might not have many memories of his family, but he spent months at a time roaming free and drinking in that scent.

  Before he knew it, Erich had taken his first step into the clearing. The flower looked pillowy soft, like he’d be laying down on a cloud. His body felt so tired after all the running, fighting, and the nicks and bruises that came with both. If he could just take a nap here, the flower’s tongue would keep him safe from-

  Tongue.

  He jerked backward, mana blossoming in his system to grant him its speed and strength just as a wrist sized purple tentacle whipped past him. Its barbed tip dug deep into a nearby tree before yanking itself free and dragging a large chunk of wood into the flower with it.

  Cold sweat ran down Erich’s back as he eyed the flower, all of his pleasant daydreams shattered in an instant. As soon as he regained his balance, Erich hurried away before the plant attacked him again. Whatever it was, the flower was dangerous and its fruit had changed him.

  He bounced up and down on his toes, letting his mana and the aftereffects of the fruit give him strength. The meal wasn’t without its benefits. It clearly healed him and gave Erich aether.

  “I can still eat some more fruit in the future,” Erich whispered to himself, quietly bargaining against his better judgment. “I just need to crawl and be careful. The flower can’t attack me if I’m below the level of its petals, so it’s just a matter of approaching it from underneath like the slug imp did.”

  He knew that the rationalization was a bit foolish. Whatever magic or pheromone the flower had used on him was clearly still in effect, but it would be just as foolish for him to ignore the benefits of eating the fruit. He would just have to be careful.

  Erich stepped out into the open, lifting a hand up to shield his eyes only to realize that there wasn’t any glare to avoid. The dull red light of hell seemed to come from everywhere. Nothing was truly bright or dark, instead the world looked like it had been bathed in blood.

  Dry rocky soil stretched out in either direction, transforming into sheer upward sloping stone as it reached the walls of the valley. About ten percent of the way up the side of the canyon, Erich could see the cave at the base of the spire, beckoning toward him. It had only been a couple of hours, but already he wanted to return to the endless dark of the unclaimed lands.

  The scavenger filled nightscape might be dangerous and all but impossible to escape, but at least Erich was used to it. More than that, if he were to return to the surface, he’d be able to escape the unending stench and murderous heat that plagued the winds of hell.

  Instead, he tore his gaze away from the cave and surveyed the edge of the jungle. Up ahead was one of the markers left by the cinderborn smugglers. Erich glanced overhead one last time to make sure that there were no flying imps nearby, but there was nothing but crimson light to answer him.

  He started walking. It would probably be a day or so to the confederate encampment if he moved at full speed, but full speed wasn’t a real possibility. His first hour in hell had been a crash course in educating him on the true dangers associated with the depths. Everything was poisonous, and everything was trying to kill him.

  Erich spotted another marker, this one a couple hundred feet away from the jungle that bordered the river. He wasn’t sure why it was so far away from the trees, but he wasn’t going to second guess the cinderborn scouts that had gone before him.

  Poisonous vines were bad enough, but there wasn’t any promise that they were the worst that the forest had to offer. Erich didn’t know the first thing about the habitat or abilities of any of the predators that lived in hell. The only assurance he had was from rumors and campfire tales, all of which contradicted each other on everything but one fact. The demons of hell took a thousand different shapes and forms, but all of them were dangerous.

  To his right, a large patch of cyan rock surrounded a bubbling pit. It was a darker shade of blue than the rest of the strangely colored stone, but Erich couldn’t quite tell what the liquid was, only that the smell of sulfur was much stronger as he approached.

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  A brief tingle of danger set the hair on the back of his neck on end, and Erich froze.

  Something was wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, but the sixth sense that had kept him alive on the battlefield was screaming.

  Erich exhaled slowly, drawing his sword and gripping it in both hands as he slipped into a fighting stance. There was nothing around him but orange and blue rocks. He couldn’t hear the telltale buzz of the flying imps. In fact, Erich couldn’t hear anything but the gentle plopping of the strange pool.

  He licked his lips nervously, eyes straining for any movement. Sathis had said that cinderborn warriors would sweep the valley, so it wasn’t likely that there would be an intermediate demon hiding nearby, but he couldn't help but worry about the puddle of strange blue liquid. There was no way for him to tell if there was something hiding in its depths.

  Movement.

  Erich’s head whipped to the side. His eyes narrowed as he stared at a nearby rock. The stone sat there inoffensively, giving no other sign that it might be hiding something dangerous. Still, Erich had seen movement around it, and he knew better than to doubt his senses.

  Mana radiated outward from his image. Not a whole lot. After all, Erich was only a first tier martial artist. He didn’t have much mana to spare.

  The energy burned away his fatigue and sharpened Erich’s senses. Suddenly, he felt like he could count the grains of sand atop the stone. He could feel each and every change in the breeze as the almost imperceptible wind brushed the foul smelling air over his skin.

  There.

  Eyes opened on the top side of the rock. Three of them. Each was almost the same orange color as the rock itself, almost impossible to notice unless he had been staring right at it.

  Erich didn’t hesitate. His feet shuffled on the ground, the toe of his left foot darting forward to touch the heel of his right just before he lunged forward.

  A heat mirage trailed after Sathis’ sword, the product of Erich’s mana and training, as it sped through the air, easily cracking through the rocky shell of the imp and stabbing deep into the spongy flesh that lay beneath.

  The monster let out a chittering wail as it died. Without pause, a half dozen boulders around Erich sprouted legs and mouths, lifting themselves off the ground as they began chittering back at the dying demon.

  Erich pulled his sword free, feet tapping against the ground as he danced back to the center of the circle formed by the rock imps. His eyes darted from one to another as he tried to find a weakness he could exploit.

  There wasn’t one. Each of the imps was roughly equidistant from the others. They didn’t seem terribly fast, so Erich might be able to slip through the gap between two of them, but that would have made them scurry toward him in order to close the net around him.

  Instead, the imps were content to remain in their positions, hissing and chattering as they spoke to each other in some incomprehensible language. A bead of sweat, a testament to the heat and stress that filled hell, slid down the side of Erich’s face.

  He didn’t know why the little monsters weren’t attacking, but if they wanted to wait, that meant that holding still would be a bad idea. Erich didn’t know if they were holding him in place for a stronger demon or if the six imps were trying to cast some sort of spell that would disable him so that they could eat him at their leisure, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to let them have the initiative.

  Erich’s feet shuffled to lunge a second time, and a flash of warning was all the notice he had as a dagger of orange rock shot through the air at the side of his head. He didn’t even have time to thank his image for his enhanced perception and reflexes.

  Without thinking, Erich spun around, his left foot shooting out for balance as his sword intercepted the spike in mid air. Another two of the imps fired their own rocks at him, spitting the projectiles from their toothy mouths with the same speed of a herder with a sling.

  He pulled his body backward to dodge one, mana coated sword shattering the other. Flecks of high speed stone peppered Erich’s body, battering his chainmail and drawing dozens of beads of blood on his face and arms where they punctured his skin.

  Before he could set his feet to lunge again, instinct made Erich spin on the ball of his right foot. Behind him, one of the imps had charged at him, a pair of rocky hands, each tipped with four wickedly sharp claws, were grasping toward where the heel of his left foot had been planted.

  Erich’s sword darted forward, mana helping the blade shatter through the imp’s armor and sear the flesh underneath. He didn’t wait to see the damage caused by the attack, dashing past the dying creature even as another two stone bolts zipped through the air.

  Finally free, Erich turned and set his feet. Two of the seven monsters were dead, and theoretically he could just run away, but the tickle of aether he had felt each time he killed one of the rock imps was too much to pass up.

  Now that the monsters’ camouflage was gone, they were nowhere near as threatening. He already knew about their slow scuttling movements, claws, and ability to fire spikes made of stone. So long as he didn’t let the imps surround him, Erich’s sword was fast enough to deflect their attacks.

  For the first time since had descended into hell, he actually held the advantage in a fight. It might be petty and pointless, but he wasn’t going to let that moment pass.

  His feet brushed against the ground, barely touching the dirt and stone as mana filled Erich’s body. He practically flew, leading with a thrust that easily punched straight through one of the imps.

  A dagger of stone flew at Erich. He lifted his hands high, the point of the sword angled toward the ground as he deflected the attack. Then, in one smooth motion he brought the blade around, hacking it downward at a second imp and cleaving it in half.

  The other three imps tried to scurry away from him in a futile attempt to open up enough distance for them to pepper him with stone spikes. Erich didn’t let them.

  He moved faster than he’d ever thought possible, adrenaline and mana combining with the efficiency of Magma Blossom to turn him into a blur. One thrust punched through the back of an imp. A second managed to get a claw up, forcing Erich to dispatch it with two slices, one to sever the claw and another to shatter its armor and cook the flesh inside. The final imp fired one last spike at him.

  Once again, it shattered on Erich’s blade, spraying him with sharp stone fragments, but that was the end of the fight. He jumped forward, slashing downward while in the air, and brought his sword down in a double handed grip that easily chopped through the imp and deep into the ground below it.

  A ragged breath escaped Erichs’ throat. He hadn’t even realized he had been holding it. The entire battle took a little more than ten seconds, but he was already exhausted and had barely any mana left.

  He reached up, running the back of his hand across his forehead. It came back smeared with blood and sweat.

  Erich glanced around the battlefield a second time. There were a couple of boulders that looked suspicious, but they were all far enough away that he would have some warning if they decided to suddenly sprout claws and attack him. Plus, outside their ability to spit stone, the imps weren’t actually much of a threat.

  Gravel crunched under Erich’s boot as he dropped down to a knee next to one of the imp’s corpses. He pushed some of the stone armor to the side, exposing the creature’s fleshy interior. Its insides were a pale green, without any bones or structure. In fact, the monster didn’t seem to have any internal organs at all other than a gullet and stomach. It was like its entire body was little more than a repository for aether and mana.

  He took off his backpack and pulled out a canteen, wincing as the foul taste of the water hit the back of his throat. Erich swallowed, eyeing the dead bodies around him contemplatively. The amount he didn’t know about the ecology of his valley, let alone hell itself, could fill an entire library, but for the first time he had materials and a little bit of breathing room. Maybe it was time to experiment.