Corvian’s POV
[System Recording has been recovered… Automatically opened.]
“What the hell? Recording?” I muttered under my breath.
My voice sounded small in the vast emptiness around me.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The sound echoed faintly, rhythmic and deliberate, like someone drumming their fingers against stone.
My heart skipped.
What?
I immediately turned my head left, then right, scanning every shadow, every uneven patch of rock, every dark corner that could conceal a living presence. My grip tightened instinctively.
There was no one.
The air was still.
“Can you hear me now?”
I jumped back so hard I lost my balance and landed straight on my ass.
“Fuck!”
Pain shot up my spine, but that was the least of my concerns. I scrambled upright halfway before freezing again, eyes darting in every direction.
Nothing.
No footsteps.
No breathing.
No shifting silhouettes.
The voice had not come from the environment.
It had come from inside my head.
“If you are hearing this, you must be confused.”
No shit I’m confused.
The voice sounded casual. Almost amused. Not hostile, but definitely not friendly either.
“I’m the friend of the Mysterious Figure. And if you are hearing this, that means you haven’t found his beloved weapon yet.”
My chest tightened.E
Beloved weapon.
So this was about that.
“I’m going to help you locate it but that doesn’t mean I will just give it to you!”
I remained frozen for a moment, processing.
There was still no physical presence nearby. No mana fluctuation that suggested an illusion caster hiding in the dark. The system message had said recording.
So this was pre recorded.
Implanted somehow.
A mental playback triggered by something I had done.
“Sooo, to save time because this recording has a limit…”
A limit?
“Infernus is at the Relictomb of Hell.”
The name alone felt heavy.
Infernus.
And… Relictomb of Hell.
“I don’t know what time period you are in but just so you know, relictombs are like… How do I say this… It’s an ancient version of a dungeon basically.”
Ancient version.
So older.
More dangerous. Less regulated and less predictable.
I slowly lowered myself down onto a flat piece of stone, deciding that falling on my ass twice in the same minute would be embarrassing as fuck.
I sat carefully, elbows resting on my knees, focusing entirely on the voice.
The name sounded dramatic.
Too dramatic to be anything less than catastrophic.
I exhaled slowly, forcing my breathing to steady.
“Alright,” I muttered quietly to myself. “Keep talking.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“And you might wonder where this relictomb is. That’s why I’m h3_e.”
What?
The voice distorted mid sentence.
Static crackled violently inside my skull, like someone had dragged metal across metal directly against my thoughts.
“1t’s in tH3 02s2—”
The sound twisted.
Glitched.
Fragments of syllables overlapped and tore apart as if the recording itself was being chewed up from the inside.
“Wait, wait, what the fuck is happening?” I muttered, eyes narrowing as if squinting would somehow fix the distortion.
I held my breath.
Maybe it would correct itself.
Maybe it just needed a second.
But the corruption only worsened.
The words became incomprehensible noise before cutting off entirely.
Silence.
Cold.
Unhelpful silence.
Then—
[Recording has crashed. Reason: It has reached its limit.]
I stared at the notification in disbelief.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
My jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.
That was it?
That was the grand revelation?
A half corrupted clue that meant absolutely nothing?
The name Infernus still echoed in my mind.
Relictomb of Hell.
And some broken, useless string of letters and numbers that looked like a drunk system error.
I ran the distorted phrase through my head again.
h3_e.
02s2.
It made no sense.
Unless it did.
And I was just too fucking slow to see it.
I exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down my face.
“Well, fuck.”
The only chance I had to locate that mysterious, powerful weapon had just evaporated because some ancient recording decided it had a time limit.
Of course it did.
Because apparently my life was a series of almost answers.
But life did not even give me the courtesy of a full minute to sulk.
The moment I shifted my weight to quietly slip out from the bush I had been crouched in-
A shadow moved.
I froze.
Too late.
A pair of sharp eyes locked directly onto mine.
Shit.
This guard was not like the female elf from before.
She had been silent.
Calculating.
This one?
He inhaled deeply.
I could see his chest expand.
I already knew what was coming.
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered under my breath.
“HUMAN! BREACH IN THE BASE! ALERT THE BASE!”
His voice exploded through the air like a fucking war horn.
The shout echoed across the area, loud enough to wake the dead.
Within seconds, movement stirred everywhere.
Footsteps.
Weapons shifting.
Voices rising.
So much for sneaking out quietly.
I had maybe a few seconds before the entire base swarmed my position.
And I was still crouched in a goddamn bush.
Before he could scream a second time, before his lungs could fill again and unleash another alert that would summon the entire fucking base onto me, I lunged forward.
No hesitation and no refined technique.
Just raw instinct.
I drove the sharpened branch straight toward his chest, aiming precisely where I knew his mana core should be located. Center mass. Slightly above the diaphragm. I did not need perfection. I just needed penetration, a spot where his armor won’t protect his ass.
But he reacted faster than I expected.
The wooden shield snapped up with shocking precision and my branch slammed against it instead of his chest. The impact jarred my wrist painfully.
“Shit.”
If this was what a normal elf guard wore, then I had a problem.
He was clad in steel chainmail that covered his chest and extended down into leggings. The interlocked rings glinted faintly under the scattered light, layered enough to absorb blunt force and reduce piercing damage unless struck at the right angle. An iron helmet covered his head, hiding most of his expression, and iron boots reinforced his stance.
He was not some lightly equipped scout.
He was a standard infantryman.
Which meant there were many more like him.
He held a spear tipped with obsidian.
Not just iron.
Not just steel.
But, obsidian.
A few decades ago, the elves had maintained a close relationship with the dwarves. Back when trade agreements were not poisoned by politics and pride. Because of that alliance, they gained access to the mines within the dwarf kingdom. And in those mines, obsidian was common. Far more common than in the Central kingdom of the elf kingdom, where such material was rare and highly regulated.
That spear tip was not decorative.
Obsidian was brittle, yes.
But it was razor sharp.
If that thing pierced cleanly, it would not need to go deep to ruin my fucking day.
His shield looked wooden at first glance.
But at its surface was an iron reinforcement shaped almost like a pointed shell. It was not just defensive. It was offensive too. He could bash with it and cave my face in if I got careless.
Before I could circle around to find an opening, he thrust the spear downward toward my legs.
Fast.
Precise.
Trained.
I jumped back just in time, feeling the wind of the spear tip slice past my shin.
He tried to retract the spear quickly, but that was the opening I needed.
I stepped in aggressively and twisted my body sideways, slipping just past the shield’s edge.
Then I made my move and stabbed.
The branch sank into the side of his stomach, just beneath the chainmail where the armor had shifted during his attack.
He let out a sharp yelp.
Not a scream.
Just pain.
He recovered faster than I liked. His shield came up again, blocking my direct line of attack. He retreated half a step, repositioning.
Damn, this branch is sharp.
I could feel how easily it had pierced.
This was not just a stick anymore.
Something about it was different.
Enhanced and alive.
He attempted another spear thrust, but this time he overcommitted slightly. The shield dragged down with the motion, its weight slowing his recovery.
That was it.
That was the fucking gap.
I surged forward again and stabbed him in the shoulder.
Once.
Twice.
The branch sank in deep enough that I felt resistance break.
This time, instead of just cursing under his breath, he screamed.
Loud.
Raw.
Desperate.
And… Oh yeah!
The poison effect from the third stab.
I had almost forgotten about it in the heat of the moment.
But it was not just poison.
The wound did not merely darken.
It changed.
Fungus began to sprout from the puncture site.
At first, it looked subtle. Small patches. Pale growth spreading unnaturally fast across his shoulder.
He tried to shake it off.
Tried to scrape at it with his shield.
But it spread.
Rapidly.
Exponentially.
Within seconds, the fungus thickened, layers stacking over one another as if accelerated by invisible hands. The growth pulsed faintly before splitting open.
And then—
A vine erupted from the wound.
Not a thin tendril.
A thick, muscular vine.
It burst outward violently, writhing with disturbing purpose.
The elf’s scream cut off halfway as the vine coiled upward and wrapped around his mouth and nose.
Tight.
Sealing.
It constricted instantly, cutting off his air supply.
He dropped his spear.
His shield fell uselessly to the side.
He clawed at the vine, fingers scraping desperately, but the more he struggled, the tighter it seemed to constrict. It moved like a snake. Alive. Intentional. Cruel.
Holy shit.
His body spasmed for several long seconds before weakening.
Then going still.
I stood there, breathing heavily, staring at what I had just done.
I thought the new skill I obtained was just a small surprise.
A little extra damage.
Maybe a debuff.
But fuck was I wrong.
This was not small.
This was violent.
This was MONSTROUS.
I looked down at the dead soldier.
Then at the branch in my hand.
It looked ordinary.
Innocent.
Like something you would pick up absentmindedly while walking through a forest.
A faint notification appeared in front of my vision.
[You’ve killed Rank C Shielded-Spear Elf. Would you like to consume its soul?]
I froze.
Holy shit.
