Chapter 31

And Again, Hell and the Lifeless Fields of Ash

Once more, Hell and the lifeless fields of ash, shrouded in mist with the Overlords and Death. The last few transitions had been met by guardians, and here was another one. What could be expected from a beast-like old man, three meters tall, more monster than human? And blind, no less. That’s right—death.

This monstrosity appeared a full ten minutes after my arrival. "The guardian will pursue the intruder until it catches them and makes their soul suffer." The gargoyles had been kind enough to tell me about him. Better to kill him right away.

Beastfolk. Plutus. Level 400.

There was no such thing as a fair fight here. I pelted him with explosive stakes, then vampires, and finally massive boulders. The last stake I drove into his skull myself. The throw wasn’t strong enough, but a running strike? He didn’t expect that. Just like I didn’t expect to survive a hit worth 25,000 damage. His club sent me flying twenty paces, but the blow was already weakened—I’d managed to drive the stake in.

Damage Taken: 25,513 (Ignored: 26,700)

HP: 2000/2000

The Fields of Ash marked the beginning of every circle of Hell. As soon as I stepped beyond them, I saw a strange sight—humans and non-humans hauling rocks, trees, chunks of iron, even the bodies of others. Everyone was carrying something, all under immense strain. And when they bumped into each other, they started fighting. The key here was not to touch anyone, and no one would touch you. But the sheer mental damage from the aura of rage and irritation told me there was a fortress nearby, and the closer I got, the stronger it would become. The fact that the mobs were conditionally neutral worked in my favor.

I wasn’t taking physical damage, but the anger was overwhelming.

From Plutus, two rings and a necklace dropped—all stats hidden. I took the stakes but left the body; it would disappear in an hour anyway. Now I needed to level up my mental resistance.

Once I found the right stat, I started looking for victims. Two fighting Wasters could be heard from the cliff where I’d perched. They were my targets. Both were Level 280. Hard labor had done them good. During the ritual, our combined health pool was 229,520. Absolute beasts with monstrous endurance—perfect. I was near the threshold where mental damage spiked. It was visible, like the red waves from a first-tier Hell fortress crystal. About five meters from that pale barrier, the closer I got, the stronger the aura’s damage.

I’d spent another 50 hours in the game, completely absorbed in artifact crafting and blood magic. The last two months hadn’t given me time to read or study, but here? Pure bliss. The only catch was remembering to heal. With two sacrifices already, I had more than enough blood.

Artifactry created items that affected the mental body, granting it new abilities or simply boosting stats. And the mental body, in turn, influenced the physical one. Right now, I was using bones, wood, and scraps of metal to craft basic items, then engraving them with runes. Essentially, it was the same as artifactry, but instead of regular magic, I was using blood ritual magic.

My current goal was to max out Blacksmithing and Carpentry. That would let me craft items with a +200% bonus. I didn’t have the Crafting skill, so I’d have to settle for high-quality base materials with their inherent bonuses. My own enhancements would come from a far more efficient method.

Ritual magic relied on special components—power items like mana crystals, sacrifices, herbs, animal parts, etc. In my case, this would give a +200% bonus, plus a little extra from my leveled blood magic.

Master artifactors followed similar principles, but ritual magic only used mana crystals. My methods were considered too bloody and archaic.

I needed a bone-carving knife, so I had to improvise. I repurposed one of my healing stakes into a serrated throwing knife. With it, I carved rings from bone. Turned out to be surprisingly easy. Once the growth slowdown kicked in, I started engraving runes. Then came bone needles, knives, spoons, doorknobs. Eventually, I ran out of bones and ground the leftovers into powder for rituals.

Metal was trickier. I couldn’t make wire for rings and chains, so I had to carve molds from stone and pour molten metal into them. Being able to bend red-hot ingots with my fingers was a nice perk. All the metal went into rings and wire. I dismantled ordinary items for materials, tossed the fabric, and kept the metal. Valuable items with unknown stats stayed in my inventory untouched.

I had to kill the sacrifices and temporarily abandon leveling mental resistance—I needed more materials. The next two days were spent gathering.

The Wasters, Misers, Usurers, and other figures had entire stockpiles. Everything I found, I hauled back to my stone plateau. Stealing chests full of rocks and running from angry mobs was oddly fun. The chests themselves were made of metal—exactly what I needed.

I got so absorbed that I didn’t notice another 50 hours passing. Had to bury myself in mud in a hurry—only my eyes and nose visible.