Naturally, the very first thing the swarm of rats did after breaking free from Eight's control was start panicking. Some of them turned and began fighting amongst themselves, while the majority simply began sprinting around, squeaking at the top of their lungs as they tried to find a way out of the sealed room. Asher couldn't help but feel a bit bad for the bloated rats that had clearly been experimented on, and he wondered just what Eight's weird mold growing on their bodies would do now that the man was dead.

Because according to that gleaming sphere of shards floating right in front of his face, Eight definitely wasn't faking it.

With a grin, Asher reached out to grab the orb, only to blink as he remembered his hand had been rather violently removed, courtesy of Eight's tail whips. It wasn't so much that he'd gotten used to the pain as he suspected Complete Resilience and quite possibly shock were simply tag-teaming to keep the pain at manageable levels. Praying Eternal Regeneration would have him back in fighting form within a few days, he reached out with his other hand and snagged the shards.

Shards: 568,329

"Holy-" he gasped, physically recoiling at his updated shard total. He knew the man had run Whikoga's Assassin's Guild, but for whatever reason, he'd never expected to earn over half a million shards from a single battle. And this was after shard decay. There was no telling how many shards Eight had kept on his person.

Asher tried to imagine just how many innocent people Eight had ordered killed in order to reach such an insane sum of shards as he opened his interface and checked on his skill gains from the bloody battle.

Astral Dip - Lvl 25

Distortion - Lvl 25

Secret Seeker - Lvl 20

Eternal Regeneration - Lvl 27

Complete Resilience - Lvl 24

Spatial Lock - Lvl 13

---

Spatial Lock - Lvl 15

Sever the Thread - Lvl 4

---

Sever the Thread - Lvl 6

Not bad for nearly dying like what, four separate times? A stab of pain shot through the severed tendon in his leg, and as he shifted to try and make it more comfortable, he winced as the literal hundreds of small cuts and lacerations all along his body, many of which were still actively bleeding, rubbed against the coarse fur covering Eight's corpse. The giant rat abomination didn't exactly make for a comfortable seat, but it was that or join the living carpet of rats running across the sewer floor.

Part of Asher wanted to Recall out of there right that instant, but in those last few desperate seconds, he'd actually burned through more energy than he'd anticipated. He couldn't activate Recall at the moment even if he wanted to. With a sigh, he resigned himself to a brief rest, praying that the rats wouldn't try and scamper up Eight's putrid corpse and get to him. He was already feeling light headed as it was, and the ceiling was beginning to swim a bit in his vision. It would be a few minutes before he had the energy needed to get out of here, so until then, maybe he could just close his eyes for a minute…

Asher jerked back to consciousness with a gasp, blinking as he took in the room around him. He had no idea how long he'd been out, but a quick glance down at his body showed that most of his minor wounds had been healed. Even so, the rat fur he was lying on was drenched, and a quick investigation showed it was soaked with even more blood than it had been covered in before.

His blood.

Oh, God damn it… I think I died again.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he let out a weary sigh. He knew he'd lost a lot of blood during the battle, but it was hard to keep track of just how much he lost with both his skills and when each potion of Lesser Recovery he downed replenished a good bit.

"That's the third time you managed to kill me," Asher grumbled, his voice hoarse as he lightly punched the body under him. "And I only killed you once. Damn, that makes it three-to-one. And I can't exactly even the score."

Asher felt some minor vibrations coming from his impromptu bed, and a glance over the side showed a rather disturbing sight. A few dozen rats were currently tearing into the sides of Eight's mutated body, ripping off chunks of flesh before scurrying away to be replaced with another, just as hungry rat. Wrinkling his nose at the sight and sounds, Asher rolled back onto his back, content to ignore that for a moment longer.

Hoping to take his mind off the somewhat cannibalistic feast going on directly under him, he pulled up his interface and focused on his latest skill to hit the level cap.

Spend 100,000 shards to evolve Secret Seeker?

Yes please, he thought, happily confirming his selection. Secret Seeker was definitely one of his more subtle skills, but that didn't mean it wasn't vital to his survival. From helping him spot Moxy's near-invisible air blasts, to catching minor twitches in Eight's tail before he struck, the skill had proven to be a godsend in combat on top of helping him spot hidden things.

Shards: 468,329

Secret Seeker (passive) - Lvl 21

Tier 1: Your eye is now drawn to hidden information. Let no secret go undiscovered under your watchful gaze.

Tier 2: Sense when hidden doors or compartments are nearby.

"I like the sound of that," Asher chuckled, his laugh quickly turning into a full blown cough. "Alright… Time to get out of here. But first…"

As much as he wanted to avoid the rats scurrying around, it seemed he'd been dead long enough for their nerves to calm down a bit. The fighting had finally stopped, and most of them were either happily chowing down on pieces of Eight's body, or sleeping off all the excitement around the edges of the sealed room. While it still hurt, his leg could at least support his weight again, and Asher gingerly hopped down from his perch upon Eight's form.

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The closest rats hissed at him, but none tried to attack him at the very least.

Feeling a bit like he was parting the seas as the carpet of rats hurried to get out of his way, he first walked over to where he'd seen his dagger go flying. His missing fingers were nowhere to be found, no doubt already being digested in the belly of a rat somewhere, but the gleaming steel dagger was simple enough to pick out. Happy he hadn't lost yet another one of his blades, Asher picked it up and stuck it back into his rift.

Dagger retrieved, he then made his way over to Eight's workstation in the center of the room. He figured there were good odds he'd find at least a small stash of-

"Bingo," he said, holding up three small vials of what were clearly magadrine powder. In fact, his newly evolved Identify confirmed it, which was a pleasant surprise. Shoving those into his rift as well, largely just so some unfortunate soul wouldn't stumble upon them and accidentally kill themselves, he took one look at the entire alchemical set up Eight had going on before shrugging and getting to work shoving that entire thing in his rift. He had more than enough space at the moment, so why the hell not.

He could only hope that the guards didn't have a way to peer inside his Personal Rift, else he had a feeling they might stop him when they spotted him lugging around what was probably this world's version of a portable meth lab, but for poisons.

Taking the entire alchemy station into his rift seemed to be enough to tip the final scales on his skill, and he smiled at the message he'd been waiting to see for a while now.

Personal Rift - Lvl 20

Spend 100,000 shards to evolve Personal Rift?

The moment the skill hit the level cap, Asher dropped the shards required to evolve it. After all, what was the fun in being obscenely rich if one didn't blow through all those shards within minutes of getting them?

Shards: 368,329

Personal Rift (active/passive) - Lvl 21

Tier 1: Twist space into your own personal pocket dimension.

Tier 2: Your rift is now stable and capable of being accessed.

Blinking at the surprise find, Asher immediately focused on his rift and found he was able to make a small opening directly in front of his head. Before he could think about how dangerous this might be, he shoved his head inside and looked around.

Despite the fact that his rift was usually malleable and capable of being molded to take advantage of every square inch of space, he found himself looking into a large, rectangular room about the size of a three-car garage. All the random junk he'd picked up was scattered about the floor in no particular order.

Alright, that is super cool.

Even after coming to the realization that his Personal Rift was drawing energy from his reserves for a change from him accessing its second tier effect, he was quite excited with the possibilities the evolved skill offered. But as much as he wanted to head into his own rift and start playing around, he decided getting out of the sewers was probably something he should do first.

Satisfied that he had everything he needed, he did a quick loop around the large room, smashing open the hanging potions bottles that couldn't be filled with anything good. Once they were taken care of, he looked around at all the rats, wondering if he should open the door. On the one hand, he felt the tiniest bit bad about leaving what had to be a thousand rats to slowly starve to death within the sealed room. But on the other hand, these rats had clearly been experimented on, causing them to grow larger than regular rats, not to mention how they were covered in strange forms of unnatural mold. Releasing them into the sewers might end up causing some sort of environmental disaster, and he had no doubts as to which of the four rings from Whikoga would end up paying the larger price for that.

"Sorry guys. I appreciate you not eating me while I was dead, but I can't let you out of here," he called out to the rats, imagining that at least one or two of them took a break from their disgusting meals to nod their heads at him. "Good luck!"

While he desperately wanted to go see Samantha, he knew showing up in his current condition would probably not go over very well. Even if most of his superficial injuries had healed at this point, his slowly regrowing hand still had a long way to go, and his clothing had essentially been gnawed to shreds. Not only did he need a bath, he needed an updated wardrobe.

"Bless you, Kree," he muttered, sensing that Kree was still hanging out at Draken's place for whatever reason. Focusing on his mark, the world shifted around him, and Asher was suddenly standing in some sort of small guest bedroom. Kree was busy reading a book, but the thief startled to attention when Asher popped into existence in front of him.

"You're back!" Kree grinned, slamming his book shut as he scrambled to his feet. "I couldn't believe you already ran off to fight again after what happened the last time. We were starting to… get a bit… worried…" Asher didn't actually know exactly what he looked like after his most recent battle, but based on how Kree's eyes seemed to grow wider and wider as they trailed down him, and how the thief's jaw hung wide open, he imagined he probably didn't look all that good.

"It was a hell of a fight," Asher laughed, going to scratch his head before remembering that hand was no longer attached to his body. Waving his stump about angrily for a moment, he sighed. "Yeah… Eight did a number on me. Any chance you know if Draken has a functioning bath?"

Kree ran out to inform the others that he'd returned, and Asher found himself in a steaming hot tub of water in record time. He'd been surprised to find that the tattered strips of his clothes were literally only attached to his body by his own dried blood by that point, and after peeling them off and tossing them into a trashcan he'd been provided, he let himself sink into the warmth of the water. It seemed Draken wasn't a fan of waiting, as the gang leader barged in without bothering to check if he was decent.

"Hey now, you should be more careful. Wouldn't want to stumble upon someone naked and lounging in the tub, now would you?" Asher asked, raising an eyebrow as he let the warm water seep into his exhausted muscles.

"What happened?" Draken demanded, ignoring both his comment and his nudity as his eyes flicked between Asher's missing hand and his tired face. "Is Eight dead?"

"Yeah. He's dead," Asher nodded. "I got his shards and everything to prove it."

"You actually did it…" Draken muttered, leaning back against the door in a rare display of humanity. "How did it go down?"

"I found him surrounded by a thousand giant rats that he had control over somehow. Had to fight my way through them, and when I finally reached him, he transformed himself into some gigantic, twisted, rat abomination. It wasn't an easy fight, I can tell you that," Asher said, waving his stump again. "In fact, I actually died from blood loss shortly after killing him. Obviously, let's keep that fact between the two of us."

"That would explain why you were gone for so long," Draken said, absorbing his details of the fight. "You left at the break of dawn, and it's almost dinner time. After the first few hours, we feared you wouldn't be coming back."

"It takes more than losing a few gallons of blood to keep me down," he grinned, earning a roll of Draken's eyes.

"So it would seem."

"Anyway, not that I'm complaining, but why is Kree still hanging around? I paid for him to have a place to stay at a nearby tavern."

"In fact, I asked him that same question not long ago," Draken admitted. "Alongside myself, the young thief seems to have discovered the truth behind your method of long-range teleportation. After the horrific state you were in the last time you appeared in my lobby, he wanted to be sure he was close to me and my resources in the event you had another emergency."

"Looks like I made the right call hiring him on, huh?" Asher grinned, not bothering to deny how his Recall worked. Draken was already privy to far worse secrets, he saw no harm in sharing one more.

"It looks that way. What is your plan now, Asher? Not that I don't mind your company, but I only have the one tub."

"I was going to ask you that," he admitted. "Now that Eight's out of the way, are you going to move to take out the rest of the Guild?"

"That largely depends on you," Draken said, the barest hint of steel in his voice as he watched him. "Do not forget, the Head gave you a mission to take down Eight, offering up the Guild in Whikoga as your reward. Regardless of your own desires, technically, you are now the Guild's newest Finger. In fact, I imagine it won't be long before you find yourself having a rather interesting conversation with Owl."

"Indeed."

Asher and Draken both recoiled as a familiar form rose from Draken's own shadow, the man's entire body a mask of shifting, ever-churning darkness that hid any discernible features. He had a small blade of darkness held in one hand, pressed gently against Draken's throat. Looking between the two of them, Owl cocked his head from one side to the next in imitation of his namesake.

"Let's have a chat, shall we?"

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