Reborn in hell with a skill creation system

Chapter 17: Seed And Thorns (2)

The sensation was stranger than the others, a feeling of expansion, as if his skin had grown thin and sensitive across an area larger than his body. He could feel the stone beneath his feet, the air moving through the cell, the faint warmth of the torch in the corridor outside. And somewhere beyond the door, two large soul signatures. Zara’s guards.

He sat with the feeling, learning its limits. The five-meter radius was accurate. Anything beyond that was darkness, normal sensation. Anything within was... textured. He could tell where the guards stood, how they shifted their weight, whether their breathing was calm or tense.

It would do.

Four hundred thirty-five souls remained. Not enough for another major passive, but perhaps enough for something specific. Something for the assassins that would keep coming.

"I want a skill," he said, "that creates a trap. When an enemy enters my sensory web with hostile intent, I can mark them. The mark drains their stamina and transfers it to me. Active, single target, requires physical contact to initiate."

Skill concept received: Stamina drain trap.

Calculating viability...

Viability: Confirmed.

Full version soul cost: 600 souls.

Current souls: 435.6

Full version unavailable.

Downscaled version available. Would you like to create skill?

"Yes."

LEECH MARK (Stage 1)

Type: Active

Effect: Host marks a target within sensory range. Marked target experiences gradual stamina drain while Host recovers equivalent amount. Drain rate is slow at current stage. Mark breaks if target exits sensory range for extended period or Host loses concentration.

Soul cost: 320 souls.

Accept?

Slow drain. Breakable. But in a prolonged fight, or against multiple assassins, the accumulated stamina might keep him standing when he should have fallen.

"Accept."

LEECH MARK — Stage 1 acquired.

Remaining souls: 115.6

Mael leaned back against the stone wall and let his new skills settle. Hollow Stomach, Sensory Web, Leech Mark. Three more seeds planted, watered with the last of his soul reserve. He was nearly broke again, but he was also more prepared than he’d been that morning.

The second assassination attempt came at dawn.

---

This one was professional.

Mael was awake, meditating in the sensory web’s radius, when he felt three signatures enter his detection field simultaneously. Not from the door—from above, through a crack in the ceiling he hadn’t noticed. Small bodies, fast, moving with coordination that suggested training rather than instinct.

He rolled off the bench as the first one dropped, felt claws rake across where his throat had been, and activated Leech Mark on reflex.

The touch was brief—a glancing contact as the assassin passed—but enough. The mark settled, and Mael felt a thin thread of energy begin to flow into him. The assassin stumbled, barely perceptible, but enough to disrupt its next strike.

Two more dropped. Mael used Last Word without thinking, his body spinning through an optimal defensive pattern that carried him between all three, claws extended, Leech Mark touching each in passing.

The drain was slow, but cumulative. He could feel their movements growing heavier, their strikes losing precision, while his own fatigue from the Syrus fight began to ease.

He didn’t try to kill them. Killing took time, risk, exposure. Instead, he kept moving, kept marking, kept draining, until the first assassin collapsed from exhaustion, then the second, then the third.

They were small, like the first. Constructs, or bred slaves, or something else that didn’t register as full demons. Mael checked their pulses—still alive, barely—and bound them with strips torn from their own clothing.

The door opened. Zara entered, looked at three bound assassins instead of one corpse, and raised an eyebrow.

"You’re getting efficient," she said.

"I’m getting tired of being hunted."

"That doesn’t stop until you’re dead, or powerful enough to make the cost exceed the reward." She stepped closer, examining the assassins with professional interest. "These are Veth constructs. Expensive. Someone is investing heavily in your elimination."

"Which master?"

"Hard to say. The Veth don’t sell their services cheaply, and they don’t reveal employers." She straightened. "But I have suspicions. The grey-skinned master, Thane, has the resources and the motivation. You embarrassed him publicly. He won’t forget."

Mael looked at the bound constructs. "Can they be turned? Used against him?"

Zara’s gold eyes met his, and for a moment, something almost like approval flickered there. "You’re thinking like a demon. Good. But no—the Veth constructs have suicide triggers. They can’t be interrogated, can’t be turned, can’t be kept as assets." She drew a knife from her sleeve, efficient and precise, and ended each construct with a single thrust to the heart. "Only eliminated."

Mael watched her work. The efficiency of it, the lack of hesitation. She was a noble demon, whatever that meant in Hell, and she had grown up in a world where mercy was a luxury and trust was a calculation.

"Two more days," she said, cleaning her blade on one of the dead constructs. "Then the Hollow opens. Can you survive until then?"

"I survived the egg field. I survived Drak, Vex, Syrus. I’ll survive this."

Zara sheathed her knife. "Confidence is good. Overconfidence is a corpse that hasn’t realized it’s dead yet." She moved to the door, paused. "Create more skills if you can. The Hollow won’t care about your confidence or your caution. It will only care about whether you’re strong enough to take what you want, or weak enough to become something else’s meal."

She left. Mael sat with the dead constructs and felt Sensory Web’s radius settle back into quiet emptiness.

Two days. One hundred fifteen souls. And whatever he could scavenge from the next wave of killers.

He began to plan his next creation.

---

The third attempt never reached him.

Mael felt the signature enter his web—a single large form, moving with the confidence of something that didn’t need stealth—and prepared for another fight. But before the assassin reached his door, another signature intercepted it. Smaller, faster, familiar.

Zara.

The fight was brief. Mael tracked it through Sensory Web, feeling the clash of movements, the sudden stillness, then the sound of something heavy being dragged away. When he opened the door, the corridor was empty except for a smear of dark blood and a faint sulfur smell.

Zara returned an hour later, her robes slightly torn, a fresh scratch across her cheek that she ignored.

"Thane," she said, before Mael could ask. "He sent a proper assassin this time. Not a construct—a real demon, mid-tier, with skills of his own." She touched the scratch, frowned at the blood on her fingers. "I convinced him that the cost was becoming excessive."

"Convinced him how?"

Zara’s smile was sharp and not at all pleasant. "I explained that I would burn his holdings, poison his champions, and personally ensure that no servant of his ever slept safely again. That the price of killing you had become higher than the price of letting you live." She paused. "For now."

"For now?"

"Thane is patient. He’ll wait for the Hollow, where accidents happen and witnesses are scarce." She met his eyes. "When we enter, stay close. The things inside are dangerous, but the other champions are predictable. They want the fruit. They want to win. Thane’s people will want you specifically, and they won’t care about the competition rules."

Mael nodded. He understood the math. In the arena, there were spectators, rules, consequences for open murder. In the Hollow, there was only survival.

"One more day," Zara said. "Rest. I’ll handle the next attempt personally."

She left. Mael returned to his bench, to his planning, to the slow accumulation of power that was the only currency that mattered in Hell.

He thought about the Hollow. About the Envy Tree. About Zara’s words—stay close—and what they implied about trust, or its approximation.

One more day.

Then the real test would begin.