Rewind: A Grimdark LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1) by James Callum (reading tree .txt) 📕

Skeletal Beast had doggedly pursued Jacob and Kim. His idea to have the Gnawing Hunger and the huge skeleton battle while he slipped in and grabbed the [Ring of Broken Vows] seemed like a bright idea at the time.

But the Gnawing Hunger had quickly bested the usurper and incorporated its bony body into itself. Jacob thought - and hoped - that would be the last he saw of the gruesome thing.

He was very wrong.

The Gnawing Hunger, reared up with the Defiler Demon clamped in its massive jaws, shaking it like a dog would a favorite toy. Jacob cringed, watching parts of the Defiler Demon’s body shake free in a spray of gore.

Wasting no time, Jacob rushed to the dais and scooped up the coal in his hand. He pocketed the [Black Ember]. The last item he would need to call the Burgon Beast from its cage.

He turned to Camilla, knowing that the Gnawing Hunger wouldn’t be satisfied with just one kill. Wasting precious seconds, Jacob wrenched off the [Ring of Broken Vows] and tossed it to Camilla. “Take this! Get back to the Pyre and continue heading north out of the Smog Rifts. Go west as soon as you can, there will be a dead blackened tree up on a rise. Wait for me there.”

Camilla snatched the ring out of the air easily enough then stared curiously at him as she put it on.

When it became clear she was deciding whether or not to heed him or help him in the coming fight, Jacob bellowed, “Go. Now!”

He turned back to the Gnawing Hunger as it was reaching out a bony hand toward him. Jacob rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the grab but was unable to do anything about the black tendril that separated from the bone and threw him across the clearing.

The force of the throw was staggering. He crashed into a pile of stones and flopped over them as his ribs cracked and his breathing became shallow.

Crushing another [Cinder Ampoule] so he could breathe, Jacob got to his feet. Tightening his grip on his [Vile Mace], he stared down the Gnawing Hunger.

It watched him, prowling on all four limbs as it slowly circled him. Jacob didn’t have any time to be sure that Camilla left.

He hoped for her sake she fled into the black smoke. Without either the [Ring of Covetous Breath] or the [Ring of Broken Vows], he had no chance of following her.

But that was a problem for future-Jacob. If, and only if he managed to survive against this horrific thing that didn’t understand when it wasn’t welcome.

Jacob stared in mounting fear as he saw the Gnawing Hunger… change.

He had a glimpse of it back in the Desecrated Catacombs but now he saw it happen before his very eyes. The black coiling tendrils of the Gnawing Hunger were still there. Angry red eyes opened along the inky black vines that wrapped parts of its newer skeletal frame.

And now there were large bony plates and sinew growing between the bones and black tendrils. Its bare skeletal head grew impressive, wickedly sharp horns draped with the black stringy vines of the Gnawing Hunger.

“What the hell are you?”

It answered with a frigid roar that blasted the miasma aside for a full second.

It was long enough for Jacob to slip on the [Ring of Boundless Fury]. He felt the heat of the ring burn him the second he put it on. But there was also a newfound power coursing through his veins.

The Demon rushed at him, attempting to gore him with its large horns. Jacob dodged to the side and came up swinging the [Vile Mace] with both hands at the Demon’s ankle.

Bone and sinew cracked beneath the assault but it was not like the other enemies he faced. Its defenses held and Jacob was caught out. Yet as large as the Demon was it couldn’t just stop its quarter-ton bulk and swipe at the much smaller Jacob.

That was the only thing that saved him as the Gnawing Hunger struck out at him with a black whipping tendril. The blow staggered him back, taking off a quarter of his Health but otherwise wasn’t a crippling attack.

The corrosive effect of his mace ate at the bone and sinew on its ankle, causing the creature to stumble as it turned to face Jacob. Dismissing his shield entirely, Jacob held the [Vile Mace] over his shoulder, poised to strike as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

He had to weaken its defenses. Against the lesser monsters in the Smog Rifts, Jacob’s heavy attacks were doing over 700 damage. But against the Gnawing Hunger, he was hardly doing 400 and that was with the damage boosting effect of the [Ring of Boundless Fury].

Against a monster so large as the Gnawing Hunger, blocking with anything less than a great shield was worthless. And even then, a single full-force blow would drain his Stamina and leave him dazed.

That wasn’t an experience Jacob planned on repeating.

But with the [Vile Mace’s] extreme Stamina consumption, it was a losing battle. No matter how careful he was with his Stamina usage, he would only ever have enough to dodge and use a single heavy attack.

And one missed dodge would be the end of it.

Crushing a [Cinder Ampoule] to counteract the Health drain from his [Ring of Boundless Fury], Jacob lunged forward. Hammering the Nail caught the Gnawing Hunger in its outstretched hand.

The satisfying sound of cracking bone echoed in the clearing a moment before the monster bellowed and tried to crush Jacob with a coiled up ball of black vines.

Jacob dodged into the Gnawing Hunger, going beneath its rib cage and swung again. He could manage two light attacks and a dodge, with a sliver of Stamina left over.

Without his shield raised, he regenerated Stamina much quicker. He needed every point to deal as much damage as possible.

Most enemies would be restored to full Health upon dying or resting at a Pyre. But Jacob didn’t think the Gnawing Hunger was a