Levels deactivated, I pushed myself away from the edge and rolled onto my back, happy that a point of HP was consumed to heal the goods.

  Then, with a sigh, I looked at the cavern ceiling. “I would have just preferred an empty place.”

  Air whistled. My eyes snapped to that blur that streaked past the cliff’s edge–a long, grey hatchet hurtling toward me like a homing missile, its handle trailing a length of frayed rope.

  “Level on!” I barked, scrambling to roll away, but the hatchet came too fast, with magical precision. It hooked into the fabric of my pants, the curved blade biting into the meat of my thigh. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, as the rope went taut. The thing must’ve hooked around a bone!

  Before I could even think to react, the rope yanked hard, dragging me toward the edge of the cliff. I dug New Arm’s fingers into the ground, clawing at the rocky ledge. Even my regular hand was clawing so hard it was splitting at the nails. New Arm was strong, but I was still getting pulled. My body slid across the unstable ground, the hatchet’s rope pulling me closer to the edge.

  “No, no, no!” I yelled, twisting my body to try and dislodge the hatchet with my right hand.

  Whatever was pulling was relentless. Just when I thought the rope was slack, it would pull with a devastating yank. My legs dangled over the edge. I twisted, chest on the ledge, hands desperately trying to be immovable.

  Another yank. I was hanging on by the strength of my fingers. I caught a glimpse of the creature below, its grotesque form writhing as it pulled me down like I was a kite stuck in a tree.

  One more yank, and the edge I was holding onto crumbled. I swung New Arm into the cliff face in a desperate attempt to slow my descent. The prosthetic screeched against the rock, sending sparks and dust flying as it carved a jagged line down the face.

  I could feel the heat from the friction. My fingers were so deep in it, but I wasn’t slowing down. At this point, I was destined to be on the ground. I could only hope that I would slow my descent enough. I looked down and shuddered.

  One of the creature’s gnarled hands reached up, ready to grab me as I fell. Rope in the other hand, it gave another vicious tug suddenly, yanking me down with more force.

  That moment–it was like me making eye contact triggered it. That slit of a mouth twisted into a mockery of a grin, and its cable-like hair came alive like there was a current within them. “Humans were meant… to climb the walls…” it rasped, its voice echoing unnaturally in the cavern–so much so that I thought it was bending reality so that I could hear it.

  I summoned the God Arm and shot, my hand throbbing from the recoil. A bolt of lightning landed near the creature. It yanked again, and again I fired. The bolt flew faster this time, but I still missed.

  “Why is there so much recoil from an elemental weapon!?” I yelled as I fired twice more.

  Again, I missed, and this time, banged my right hand hard enough that I let go accidentally. I dismissed the rifle in a flash and resummoned it into my hand.

  “I’m not losing this so easily!”

  The subsequent yank from the monster brought me a degree of clarity. Eyes narrowing on the thing, I dismissed the God Arm. My left arm gripped the stone hard and I planted my feet against the wall.

  “I’m not coming down!” I roared.

  The creature responded with a violent tug. I was waiting for it. I leaped in time with the yank, letting the momentum guide me straight to that ugly thing’s swiss cheese mug.

  God Arm manifested, and with both hands on it, I fired as I flew toward the creature. Three bolts hit him, each one ripping a shriek out of it.

  Moments from hitting the ground now. Levels on, I prayed this wouldn’t hurt. I swung New Arm as I approached the ground, swinging into its face and knocking it off its wobbly legs. I immediately shifted, going with the momentum of the punch, and landed on New Arm’s shoulder, maybe cracking a rib, if the sound and sudden sharp pain were anything to go by.

  That pain lasted for a moment. I still had HP, but had no time to waste.

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  The hatchet’s blade was still embedded in my thigh, and every movement sent fresh waves of agony through me. I wasn’t exactly sure how HP worked with a wound like this, but what mattered was that I still had HP!

  I gritted my teeth, wrapped my hand around the handle, and yanked.

  The hatchet came free with a sickening squelch, the action releasing a new shot of adrenaline into my body.

  Blood poured from the wound for all of a second before I was back in the game. This was the advantage I had over all these monsters! I didn’t react to pain for longer than a second.

  I lunged onto the monster. On its back, it swung at me in retaliation. I swung the hatchet in a wide arc, lodging it into its arm like it was a tree stump, and then, in the same motion, pushed it down to the ground and lodged the hatchet’s edge an inch into the dirt.

  Quickly, I rocked its head with a fist from New Arm. The crack of its face was the sweetest sound in the world, and the imprint it would leave on the dirt was sure to be a work of art. I stuck a finger into its eyehole and jerked its head straight again. Then I slammed New Arm’s fist into it again.

  I pried the hatchet out of the arm and swung it into the head, the blade biting deep into the hard skin. Cracks spread. I hit the back of the hatchet with the back of my opaque, metal hand and jammed it a little deeper.

  Purple ichor erupted from the wound. I slammed the hatchet deeper. Cracks became holes. There was nothing beneath this hard layer of skin. Just black space.

  It thrashed wildly, its clawed hands flailing as it tried to reach the hatchet. Its shrieks shook and chilled the soul, escaping through the holes of its head. Making more cracks was like tuning an instrument with the way they altered the sound.

  I swatted its hand away and punched it again. I lifted its head, yanking it by the holes again and slammed its head back down into the dirt.

  “Why is the center of your head still holding on!?”

  Fueled by rage, I leaped to my feet, pinning both its arms beneath my soles. The God Arm in my hand, I jammed the muzzle into one of the holes.

  The God Arm’s barrel hissed as it pressed into the monster’s cracked skull, the faint hum of magic power building to a crescendo. The creature’s shrieks reached a fever pitch, its writhing body bucking beneath my feet like a wild animal caught in a trap. I couldn’t stand here forever.

  But that was alright.

  The God Arm’s trigger clicked, and light overflowed from its head, lighting the cavern up with a blinding flash of white-yellow light. The bolt of lightning lanced into the monster’s skull, the force of the blast rippling through its body like a shockwave. The air filled with the acrid stench of burned grass and something synthetic, like melted plastic.

  The monster’s body convulsed violently, its limbs jerking and twitching as the electricity coursed through it. Its shrieks turned into gurgling, wet gasps, and then silence.

  The cracks in its skull widened, spiderwebbing out like a shattered windshield, and purple ichor bubbled up from the gaps, hissing as it met the scorched air.

  Deactivating my Levels, I fell onto my knees again, chest heaving. I gripped my metal fist with my real fist and slammed it into the head multiple times. I kept going until the head stopped being so stubborn, and the body below me stopped convulsing.

  Finally, it went limp. I grabbed the hatchet, leaned back, and swung it into its chest, sinking it inches deep and then hammering it down with a slam from New Arm.

  Panting, I stood up. The monster’s body was a ruined mess, its head little more than a crater of charred flesh and oozing ichor. It really did smell nauseating. Back on Earth, this kind of smell would probably be labeled carcinogenic.. Hoped HP would cover that…

  I stepped back, my boots squelching in the pool of purple-black fluid that had pooled beneath the creature.

  “Stay down,” I muttered, wiping the New Arm on my pants before dismissing it. My thigh throbbed where the hatchet had been. HP had already fixed it, but that echo of the pain was still there, a dull ache that pulsed with every heartbeat. Hopefully, it’d be like the others and fade away.

  I turned my attention to the hatchet, still embedded in the thing’s body. The blade was caked in ichor, but it had held up surprisingly well. I yanked it free, the blade coming out with a squelch, and gave it a quick once-over.

  The shape was good. Actually, was it a hatchet? Something about it looked a little exotic. It was tied to that frayed rope still. I followed it to the creature’s right hand and was disturbed. The rope was growing out of the creature’s palm.

  I used the hatchet to chop off the rope connected to it, and after a few practice swings to see if it would hold up, I stuck it through a loop on my pants.

  “We’ve never used Shadow Beast parts… I hope this isn’t full video game, and this hatchet’s going to disappear.”

  I studied my screens. I wasn’t getting anything like I did for the God Arm. I didn’t get any new Checklist items either.

  There was suddenly a sound–like a foot crunching the loose rocks. I spun around immediately, hatchet in hand.

  “I will… hunt… the pale monkey.”

  Before my eyes was another of these gray creatures, hunched over, dragging its oversized arms along the ground like they were dead weight. Its face was hidden by a draping, tattered hood. Its body, too, looked tattered in places. Its chest was wider than its unnervingly thin hips, but its musculature was notable, even in this lighting. This one looked like it was wearing tattered pants from how loose its leg skin was.

  It spoke again, vapor escaping from below its hood like we were in sub-zero weather.

  “I will… hunt… the pale monkey.”

  I forced a smirk. “I know I’m pale, but I’m not a monkey.”

  I glanced at my HP. I had 6 points left.