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

The whole process was quick and relatively painless. Souls were still required but he no longer needed to find a merchant that could repair the item. Without a [Repair Kit], the Fire Oppa wasn’t able to repair items.

It wasn’t as handy as [Repair Powder], which could restore a small portion of durability in the field, but compared to that the cost was low to completely repair a full set of gear.

With the way the Fire Oppa was grinning at him, Jacob had the impression that the little fiery guy liked being helpful.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where the next Pyre is, would you?” he ventured to ask the Fire Oppa.

“You’re not going to like the answer,” he replied.

He could guess well enough but any definitive answer was better than nothing. “Where?”

“Below the depths of the Asylum of Silent Sorrows,” the Fire Oppa said, laying back down within the burning Pyre.

Jacob winced. “Yeah, I thought you would say that. But you said the depths?”

The Fire Oppa nodded.

“Not going to tell me anything more specific?”

The Fire Oppa shook his head.

With a sigh and a shrug of his shoulders, Jacob went to the door and looked over his shoulder. “See you there, then.” He already knew the Pyre for the asylum was far below the first floor from Alec but it was good to have confirmation.

His next task would be to find the knight’s corpse and get some proper gear. He was tired of wearing a paper set of robes.

11

Raising his [Plank Shield], Jacob braced for the bull-headed monster’s rush. His shield held and he skidded back on his heels across the dusty stone. Just as he was turning aside to swipe his [Mace] into the thing’s remaining horn, the Minos lifted a heavy hand and pulled it back to clobber Jacob.

Without the Health to take another blow, he shifted his [Plank Shield] higher, knowing what was coming but unable to see a better way. Predictably, the Minos crashed his fist into the shield, shattering it.

Freed from the shield on his left arm, and seizing his opportunity while the Minos was preoccupied, Jacob swept his [Mace] up and into the Minos’ ribs.

He grabbed the handle with both hands, twisted on the ball of his leading foot, and pivoted around behind the Minos, swinging as hard as humanly possible at the back of the thing’s knee.

With a roar of pain and rage, the Minos collapsed to one knee. Using the last of his Stamina, Jacob broke the final horn atop the Minos’ head.

The binding magic of its heavily enchanted horns dissipated in a flash of blood-red light. Jets of flame scorched its open, screaming mouth. Flames burst from its eyes and the creature fell facedown onto the stone, no longer moving.

Lazy drifts of black smoke curled into the air from its mouth and eyes.

You defeat the [Minos].

Awarded 1,500 Souls.

You gain 2 [Broken Minos Horns].

Your Mace Skill increases to Level 18.

Dammit, Jacob thought.

He looked at his bloodied left arm where his shield had been. He leaned against the wall, pulled out his third [Cinder Ampoule], and crushed it. The healing ember knit his wounds in an instant and he wiped the blood on his arm to reveal unblemished skin.

The large spreading stain in his middle where the Minos gored him as he tried to break off the first horn stopped widening, but his robes remained just as stained and ripped.

When he first heard the telltale sound of a Minos, the massive bull-headed hulking man-thing, he only meant to investigate enough to stay ahead of it. Minos horns were powerfully enchanted – it was both their strength and their weakness – but even with his current prowess he should not have stood a chance against the thing.

Without breaking the horns, he never would have. Knowing its weakness was his only hope since the [Bladed Whip] had barely tickled the thing. Only the increase in his STR and the [Mace’s] blunt prowess allowed him to shatter the horns.

A sword, unless it was powerfully enchanted, would never have cut through them. He would need to remember to thank Alec for advising him to choose a mace.

The Minos was meant to be a threat that players ran from.

There was a reason this section of the Steps of Penance was largely devoid of any other enemy. He was meant to be chased by the creature, a constant threat that drove him deeper into the maze within the bowels of the massive bridge.

Jacob turned, summoning a whip to his left hand and his [Mace] to his right. Dual-wielding wasn’t his strong suit. A shield was just too useful. But without one, he didn’t have much choice.

Without the threat of the Minos, he was free to backtrack to where he first ran into the thing and find out just what it was guarding.

Once he followed the path back to where it had come from, Jacob realized he was closer to the other side of the Steps of Penance than he thought.

He came to a storage room filled with broken barrels littering the floor and light spilling in from a set of stairs going up through a cut section of the roof.

But he found himself drawn to the side by some unknown sensation. He missed something but he wasn’t sure what.

Jacob turned back around where the Minos had been standing and looked around. The walls were heavily scraped in long gashes as if the Minos had grown bored and tried sharpening its horns on the stone walls.

Except, there was a five-foot section of unblemished stone that interrupted the gouge marks on the wall. It shimmered strangely to Jacob’s eyes, like he was looking at it through a dirty camera lens. When Jacob put his hand to it, the illusion faded entirely and revealed a room beyond the false wall.

He entered cautiously. There was a rattling sound from the far wall. The room was incredibly long with several sets of manacles lining each wall with dark stains