Chapter 11: The First Blood

Chapter 11: Chapter 11: The First Blood

Keeping his center of gravity low, Eric pushed through the waist-high stalks of wild grassland wheat, placing each boot with calculated precision to avoid snapping dry brush.

Above the sparse treeline, Coal circled in a tight, silent orbit, his shadow gliding effortlessly over a cluster of jagged limestone boulders.

Reaching the perimeter of the rock formation, Eric dropped to one knee and peered through a narrow fissure between two sunbaked slabs.

Wedged deep inside a shaded crevice was a grotesque, alien monstrosity roughly the length of a human forearm. It was a demonic beast, an invasive entity born from dimensional rifts. Its body resembled an aberrant reptilian fiend, covered in chitinous, charcoal-gray plating crisscrossed with dull ember-orange veins that flared with a sluggish, unnatural pulse every time the fiend drew breath.

*Found you.*

*Coal, flush it into the open!* Eric commanded across the mental link.

The response was instantaneous.

Coal tucked his wings tight against his flanks and plummeted.

*WHOOSH.

Dropping like a lead weight, the crow ripped through the air, driving his bone-plated beak straight down into the demonic beast’s exposed lower flank like a carpenter’s chisel.

*SCREEECH!*

The riftspawn let out a raspy, venomous shriek. Enraged by the sudden ambush, the alien fiend scrambled out of the rock crevice, its fleshy throat pouch swelling rapidly like an overinflated, glowing orange balloon. It snapped its malformed jaws wide, coughing up a violent projectile of sputtering, molten bile straight into the sky.

Coal snapped his left wing hard against the wind shear, rolling mid-air with acrobatic agility. The sizzling glob missed his tail feathers by inches, splashing across a patch of dense turf below and instantly dissolving the blades of grass into hissing, black ash.

Eric locked his gaze onto the thrashing monster.

*Appraisal.*

│ Race: Riftspawn

│ Rank: F

│ Stage: Mortal

*Rank F. Mortal Stage,* Eric calculated, his fingers tightening around the grooved leather wrap of his shortsword. *My E-rank Appraisal is still too low to display numeric levels, but its mana circulation is sluggish and unrefined. We have the advantage here.*

*DING.*

A sharp crimson prompt cut across his retinas:

│ [DYNAMIC QUEST ENGINE TRIGGERED]

│

│ Quest: First Blood

│ Objective: Slay the Riftspawn.

│ Rewards: [Basic Gacha Ticket x1]

Eric’s eyes widened, a sudden rush of electricity racing through his veins.

*A Gacha ticket?!*

A feral, unrestrained grin broke across his face. In his previous life on Earth, gacha pulls and drop-rate gambling had been his singular guilty pleasure after grinding through grueling, soul-crushing sixty-hour work weeks.

*A system with a built-in lottery? Beautiful. Time to roll.*

"Coal! Use [Scratch]!" Eric roared, stepping out from behind the limestone boulder.

Coal banked hard against the wind, his ivory talons extending outward as a faint sheen of shadow elemental mana wrapped around his claws. He swept downward in a razor-sharp strafe, his talons screeching against the monster’s chitinous back. Sparks flew as alien plating tore away, spraying a line of dark, foul-smelling ichor across the stone.

*HISS!*

Driven by feral agony, the demonic beast whipped its muscular body around, its thick tail lashing through the air like an iron whip.

*THWACK.*

The heavy blow clipped Coal’s trailing wingtip. A jolt of dull pain shot through Eric’s own shoulder via the soul tether as the bird lost lift, tumbling awkwardly through the grass.

"Coal!"

Seeing his bonded beast grounded and vulnerable, Eric’s survival instincts took over. He lunged forward, closing the ten-meter gap with unpolished, desperate speed. Raising his iron shortsword with both hands, he drove the blade downward in a straight, heavy thrust aimed at the creature’s neck.

*CLANG!*

The tip struck a thick ridge of reinforced bone along the fiend’s shoulder. The violent impact sent a bone-jarring shockwave straight up Eric’s wrist, and the steel skated off the dense hide without piercing the meat.

The botched strike only enraged the demonic beast further.

The riftspawn whipped its head around, its yellow, unblinking slit pupils locking onto Eric. Its throat pouch flared a blinding, radioactive orange as it prepared a point-blank blast of molten fire aimed squarely at his face.

Panic spiked for a fraction of a second, but the blacksmith’s warning rang through his mind.

*Defense first.*

Eric hauled his left forearm up, planting his boots into the dirt and thrusting the wooden-core round shield between them.

*BOOM!*

A concussive wave of sticky, superheated fire detonated against the shield’s steel rim. The raw kinetic force shoved Eric back two paces, his boots gouging deep ruts into the soil. Acrid, suffocating smoke billowed into his nostrils as the outer wooden veneer groaned under the heat. The temperature scorched straight through the leather arm-straps, blistering the skin of his forearm, but the heavy buckler held firm.

Through the blinding smoke, Coal struck back.

Launching from the grass with a furious *CAW*, the black bird rocketed upward and drove his talons directly into the monster’s right eye socket.

The demonic beast shrieked in agony, thrashing blindly as it clawed at its own face.

"Die!"

Dropping the smoking shield, Eric stepped in close and gripped the hilt of his shortsword with both hands. Channeling every ounce of his body weight and momentum, he threw himself into a downward plunge, driving the cold iron blade straight through the soft, exposed roof of the thrashing beast’s skull.

*CRUNCH.*

Steel sheared through bone and brain, pinning the monster’s head firmly to the hard earth.

The riftspawn’s ember veins flared one final, desperate time before flickering out. Its thick, muscular legs twitched violently against the dirt, then went completely limp.

Silence reclaimed the clearing.

Eric remained frozen over the corpse for several seconds, his chest heaving as sweat and soot stung his eyes. His left forearm throbbed with a burning ache, and his knees felt like water as the adrenaline dump receded.

He looked down at the dead monster, then glanced over at Coal, who had hopped onto a nearby boulder to preen a soot-stained wing.

A breathy, manic laugh broke from Eric’s throat, bubbling up into a triumphant shout:

"HELL YEAH! I am the King of the world!"

Eric pumped his blood-stained fist toward the amber sky.

He froze, blinked, and quickly lowered his arm, coughing awkwardly into his elbow as he scanned the empty grasslands.

"Ahem... stay humble, Eric. Keep your head on straight. It was just an F-rank Riftspawn. Let’s not embarrass ourselves before we even hit Level 1."

*DING.*

│ [QUEST COMPLETED: First Blood]

│

│ Rewards: [Basic Gacha Ticket x1]

│ Item has been deposited into [System Inventory].

Eric pulled his blade from the skull with a wet slide, wiping the dark ichor off on the dry grass before sheathing it at his waist.

His dark eyes gleamed with hungry anticipation.

*First blood drawn. Time to see what this lottery ticket is made of.*