The Eternal Assassin

Crashing to the floor in a tangle of limbs, it took Asher a second to realize what he'd done. Looking into the wide, black eyes staring up at him in shock, he recoiled, shoving himself off the demon and stumbling back to take in his surroundings.

This room he'd landed in looked like some sort of alchemical workshop. There were cauldrons lining the walls and shelves of strange materials containing everything from dried animal parts to glowing herbs, most of them giving off all sorts of unpleasant smells. Based on the bowl of partially crushed up bones and the white powder coating the demon's fists, he could only assume the demon had been busy creating potions for the wizard before Asher had landed on him.

Thankfully, this demon was a lot smaller than the one that had been chasing him. Only about four feet tall and with horns that were more nubs than anything, this demon looked a lot less threatening than his older brother, and his Identify confirmed it.

[Imp] – Bound

Of course, that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

Letting out a high-pitched screech, the imp flexed its sharp claws that looked like they'd tear through him like hot knives through butter before rushing him. Cursing, Asher darted back, yanking his dagger out of its sheath and trying to calm his pounding heart.

All you need to do is survive. Your healing will take care of the rest.

Reaching him, the imp lashed out, trying to tear deep into Asher's stomach with its claws. Only managing to dodge partially out of the way, Asher winced at the burning hot pain that scraped across his gut as he thrust out his dagger. He'd moved fast enough that he still had all his internal organs, but it felt as though the imp had gouged a good bit of flesh out of him.

Thankfully, his wild thrust actually connected, and he managed to catch the imp in the shoulder. To his dismay however, his attack seemed to do little more than annoy the imp based on the angry look it gave him. Snarling at him, the imp's other hand caught him across the chest, knocking him backwards and slamming his back into one of the shelves, causing a myriad of unknown plants and bottles to topple to the floor. It was all Asher managed to do to hold onto his dagger as new pain lanced through him from the fresh wounds decorating his chest.

Feeling the warmth of his own blood trickling down his front, Asher grit his teeth, praying his regeneration would be enough to get him through this. He wasn't some trained combatant. He didn't know any martial arts. All he had was a rusty blade and the strange gifts he'd gotten since appearing in this world.

Realizing he was an idiot, Asher cursed his own stupidity. Taking a few calming breaths while the imp grinned and licked his blood off its claws, he prepared himself for the imp's next attack. He had one more tool at his disposal that he'd completely forgotten about in his blind panic from landing on the imp.

Finished with his snack, the imp screeched once more, darting forward to finish him off. Holding his breath, Asher waited until the very last moment before activating Astral Dip and slipping into the astral realm. He watched as from the imp's perspective, Asher seemed to vanish entirely. The imp came to a hesitant stop, looking around in confusion for its wounded prey. Asher had only seconds to work with, but that was more than enough time for him to get into position.

Gritting his teeth at the pain, Asher did his best to ignore the lacerations all across the front of his body as he kept his muscles tense, forcing himself to remain in the astral realm while stepping directly through the imp's body. Not able to hold on any longer, he only just managed to turn around and adjust his positioning when his ability finally ended. The moment he returned to the regular world, he struck, sliding his dagger into the imp's back, directly where its heart would be if it were a regular human.

Asher had no idea if he'd actually pierced its heart, or if it even had a heart, but his attack was effective nonetheless. The imp froze the moment Asher's blade entered its back, and after a few tense seconds where Asher feared the imp would turn around and smile at him before tearing into his face with those sharp claws, the monster finally slid forward off his dagger, crumpling to the ground in a lifeless heap.

Panting, Asher stumbled backwards, dropping his bloody dagger and leaning heavily against a set of shelves as he pressed a hand to his open wounds. His muscles ached and his body shook as he took in the corpse of his assailant lying unceremoniously on the floor.

Keep it together, Asher. It tried to kill you, and you killed it instead. End of story.

Repeating that to himself like a mantra, Asher hissed at the throbbing pain in his chest and stomach even as he felt his passive working to fix him. He'd been lucky to only receive superficial lacerations after fighting a creature that essentially had knives for hands. He'd witnessed more than a few bodies pass through their funeral parlor over the years as the result of a knife fight, and his mentor would always shake his head and give him the same warning.

'The loser of a knife fight dies in the street. The winner dies in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.'

Despite the fact that his wounds weren't all that severe, it still took a good couple of minutes for his body to regenerate back to normal. In that time, Asher managed to calm himself down and wipe his dagger clean of blood on a rag he found. His mantra seemed to have worked to at least some degree as well, as while he still had a strange tightness in his stomach after having killed another living thing, he was no longer freaking out.

New world, new rules. Even if it's humanoid, if something comes at you with the intent to kill, you have every right to fight back.

Taking a shuddering breath, he nodded to himself, pushing that strange feeling in his stomach down. It was lucky he was so familiar with death, or he'd probably be freaking out right about now. Just as he was about to take a more thorough look around the room, he blinked at the sudden text that appeared as the last of his wounds faded.

Eternal Regeneration - Lvl 2

Oh, that didn't take much to level up. Just nearly getting gored by impward scissorhands, I guess.

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Realizing his lack of sleep might be affecting him more than he thought, Asher shook his head at his own horrible joke before doing a careful lap of the workshop in search of anything that looked even remotely useful. In the end, he was still too hesitant to try grabbing any of the carefully organized materials in case he picked up fantasy poison oak or something. While he got a bit of information from his Identify skill, it didn't really do him a lot of good. Mainly it just gave him names that meant nothing to him, and informed him that the wizard that had kidnapped him apparently dealt in only the finest of alchemical ingredients.

[Dried Phortok Root] – High Quality

[Pickled Aven Eyes] – High Quality

[Shredded Rhumbarg Leaf] – High Quality

Again, not that helpful.

But he did snag three stoppered potions that were just sitting out by one of the cauldrons ripe for the taking. He certainly wouldn't be drinking them, seeing as Identify told him nothing but [Unknown Potion], but he figured he could throw them at an enemy as a worst case scenario. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to go through the entire room, and when he finally finished shopping, he'd received one last pleasant surprise when he checked his notifications.

Identify – Lvl 2

---

Identify – Lvl 5

I guess that was quite a lot of strange and unique ingredients for a single room. I probably shouldn't expect leveling to be that easy going forward. He hadn't really noticed a difference in using his Identify skill from when he began searching the room compared to when he finished, so he was curious to see just what benefit leveling that skill would have for him in the future.

Ah, look at that. Back to blindly assuming I'll survive the rest of the day. Love the optimism, me.

His wounds healed and dagger at the ready, Asher briefly contemplated risking heading back into the stairwell and just taking the stairs to the bottom now that he was a few floors down from where he'd last seen the demon, but he didn't want to risk running into the demon again if he could help it. For all he knew the demon could smell humans from a hundred yards away.

Thankfully, he'd learned from his earlier mistake. Rather than blindly dropping through the floor into the next room, he got on his hands and knees and activated Astral Dip with the intention of pressing his face through the floor and taking a look at whatever was below him.

And promptly fell right through the floor anyway.

It all happened so fast he didn't even have time to scream, and he miraculously managed to land on his feet like he'd meant to drop through the floor.

Which was great, seeing as he found himself staring face to face with three more of the imp creatures.

Thankfully, they appeared even more surprised than he was, and Asher managed to take full advantage of that. Lunging forward, he drove his dagger straight into the first one's chest before any of them could so much as move. Coughing up a bit of blood onto Asher's face, the life left the imp's wide eyes as its body fell to the floor. Immediately upon seeing their comrade slain, the remaining two imps began shrieking before charging directly at him.

Assuming they would attack with the same wide, reckless slashes as the imp he'd fought on the floor above, Asher waited until they got close before slipping into the astral realm and pivoting behind them. Just like before, the imps stumbled, looking around in confusion as he vanished before their eyes. Popping back into existence behind one of them, Asher stabbed it from behind, his blade biting deep into the unsuspecting demon's neck and making short work of the confused imp.

Unfortunately, while he was busy killing that one, the remaining imp spun around and raked its claws across Asher's face.

Screaming in pain, Asher stumbled backwards, falling to the ground and dropping his dagger as his hands reflexively covered his damaged eye. He had no idea how badly he'd been wounded, but based on the sensation of a hot poker shoved deep into his left eye socket and the fact that half his vision was gone, he imagined it was pretty bad.

Grinning at his obvious torment, the final imp slowly stalked forward, licking the blood and remnants of his eye off its claws as it stepped over its fallen comrades without a second glance.

Scrambling backwards, Asher quickly reached into his bag. Without looking, he grabbed one of the three potions he'd taken from the workshop upstairs and hurled it at the approaching imp.

The imp's eyes widened in surprise at the colorful potion flying directly at its face, and it threw up its arms in a desperate attempt to block the bottle. To Asher's shock his aim proved true, and despite his current lack of depth perception the bottle soared straight past the imp's waving arms, hitting the monster directly in its unprotected face.

And proceeded to bounce off harmlessly.

Asher and the imp both watched the bottle fall to the ground, bounce unharmed off the stone floor with a gentle 'clink,' and finally roll a few feet away before coming to a rest.

The room was silent for a moment as the two of them both processed what just happened. After a few seconds, the imp turned back to him, giving him a strange look that seemed almost like pity.

"Oh, don't give me that!" Asher snapped, frowning at the monster that had been attempting to kill him just moments ago. "How was I supposed to know the bottles are reinforced glass or something?!"

Taking advantage of the sudden lull in combat, Asher scrambled forward, desperate to reclaim his dagger. His sudden movement seemed to snap the imp back to its own senses, as it let out a fresh shriek and lunged forward itself to finish him off. Asher barely managed to get a hand around the hilt of his dagger before the imp was upon him. Seeing the sharp claws coming straight for his throat, Asher tensed and shifted realms, just in time for them to pass harmlessly through him.

He didn't think he'd have time to both get up and attack the imp before his skill ended, so he decided to take a risk. Only staying in the astral realm for the split second it took the imp's claws to pass through where his neck had been, he let his skill end early this time, slashing up at the imp the moment he returned.

The imp shrieked once more as Asher's blade scoured across its leg, slicing deep into the muscle but not seeming to do much actual damage. The monster snarled, slashing down yet again in an attempt to get rid of the tower's intruder.

Again, Asher dipped into the astral realm just long enough to dodge the attack, before ending his skill and stabbing into the imp's leg a second time. This time, he must have severed something important, because the imp's leg finally gave out and the monster collapsed on top of him.

Or he would have, if Asher hadn't already shifted realms a third time.

Taking advantage of the astral realm's strange properties, Asher rolled straight through the kneeling imp and even managed to get back to his feet before his skill ended. Before the imp could figure out what happened, Asher stepped forward, slamming his dagger into the back of the surprised imp's head and finishing it off.

Panting at the rapid use of Astral Dip, Asher's entire body shook as he stared at the bodies of the fallen imps. He felt like he'd just run up a hundred flights of stairs, and it took everything he had not to collapse to the ground right there. Sensing he had a new notification, he brought it up with a thought.

Astral Dip – Lvl 2

Laughing, he dismissed the words with an unnecessary wave of his hand. Once he was recovered, he'd have to run some tests and see how much leveling the skill actually affected it. For now though, he should probably wait a bit and let his Eternal Regeneration fix up his eye. He had no idea how long repairing something as complicated as an eye would take, but he definitely didn't want to risk an encounter with any more monsters until it was healed.

Just as he decided to find a comfortable corner of the room and check if the hardtack he'd picked up earlier was actually edible or not, a strained voice called out to him from behind.

"Please… You have to help us!"