Fascinated despite the macabre tableau in front of him, Hunter drifted closer to see what the ghorum was consuming. He almost exited his stealth in shock. Laid before the ghorum was a humanoid with purple skin. On closer inspection, it appeared to be a woman, but a kind of woman that Hunter had never seen. The longer he looked, the more confused he became.

She had plum-colored skin that lightened into mauve on her splayed palms. Her black hair was long and spread behind her head like an obsidian fan. Parts of it were crusted with what Hunter assumed was blood. On her forehead, a pair of purple horns grew sideways, and beneath them, a pair of dead, sage-colored eyes stared into the sky above. She wore shattered golden armor, and Hunter spotted a glittering sword that resembled his own discarded on the ground.

The ghorum was grunting as it raked the woman’s torso and pulled lengths of gray intestines with its clawed fingers before shoving them into its mouth. There was something profoundly disturbing about the action. Hunter had seen brutality up close, but never at this scale. It felt entirely different from watching imps prepare to devour a wild animal. The woman was human enough that it sparked a visceral reaction. 

The ghorum’s hands were soaked with black blood up to its elbows. It greedily stuffed the woman’s organs into its maw and crunched them with its teeth. The sound of the chewing and the smell of voided bowels were overpowering Hunter’s senses. He wanted to throw up, feeling the acid rising in his throat, but he swallowed it down. If he revealed himself, the ghorum might make him a meal. He won his last fight because of the element of surprise. He wasn’t going to give up his advantage this soon.

Resolved, Hunter activated charge and aimed his blade for the monster’s ribs. He rocketed through the trees and plunged his sword in the creature’s side. Leaping back, he threw his fireball into the ghorum’s face as it roared in pain. Hunter ignored the rope-like organs trailing from the demon’s mouth.

His broadside took the ghorum directly in the face and exploded with a thunderous clap. The force was enough to physically push Hunter backward while the nearest trees shattered from the concussive wave. The charcoal-covered foliage was falling all around Hunter as he activated Battle Meditation and continued his assault. 

The ghorum was still reeling from the fireball when Hunter struck again. He ran toward the beast and attacked with his blade. His sword arced over the young warrior’s head and rent a bloody smile in the ghorum’s throat. The demon choked on its blood as Hunter assailed it in righteous fury. Every slash hit an important tendon or ligament, and every thrust pierced the monster’s hide in an attempt to cripple a vital organ. 

Hunter wasn’t slowly wearing down his enemy like before. There was no graceful set of moves or elegant sweep of his wrist. Hunter was brawling with the demon and reveling in the carnage. In a body of seconds, the ghorum was riddled with injuries, and Hunter was covered head to toe in the demon’s blood. Each successful hit flooded Hunter with more power and empowered each consecutive flurry.

As Hunter carved the ghorum to pieces, he felt an evolution in his Covetous Eyes occur. He didn’t receive a notification, but he felt like his skill was identifying weaknesses in the ghorum and allowing Hunter to target them appropriately. As soon as he was aware of the effect, he received messages from the Archives informing him of level ups in various skills. Hunter dismissed them immediately, too focused on ending the threat of the ghorum. 

He didn’t have to wait long. At the end of his last assault, the monster was a broken, beaten thing. It resembled ground meat more than anything else. Not a single square inch on the creature was unmarred. Hunter had been vicious in his assault on the beast. When the hulking monstrosity finally collapsed to the ground, Hunter approached it with light steps. He lifted the demon’s head and allowed his visage to feed on its soul energy. 

Hunter released its mummified head and then pulled one of its limbs to drag the ghorum away from its meal. He knew that the humanoid was already dead, but he wanted to study the creature. If there were other sentient life within the Rift, then Hunter wanted to meet them. They were probably enemies, but he hoped his damaged visage would see him through the challenge. If they could communicate, then they could be tricked. It wasn’t the most honorable plan, but Hunter had discarded the sense of honor in pursuit of survival.

When he drug the ghorum a sufficient distance, he returned to the dead woman. Now that he was up close and personal, he saw that she was unearthly beautiful. She was clearly demonic in origin. He even spotted a tail that had been hidden by her body. Despite that, her exotic traits made her all the more desirable. Well, if one ignored the gaping wound in her torso…and the blood…and the whole being dead thing.

Okay, I’m making this weird.

Hunter decided to distract himself from the woman herself and focus on her equipment. Everything was surprisingly high quality. It was all greed-aspected gear that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the armory within the Sanctuary. The young warrior could peel his own armaments pining after the new resources. They were hungry and wanted to feed on the material. Hunter wasn’t so foolish as to feed them immediately. He had found a sort of balance with his equipment, and he was loathe to disrupt that balance now. 

Instead, he stripped her of her armor and placed it within his Wrap of Avarice. He was surprised that the goods weren’t considered stolen. Hunter guessed that robbing corpses was recognized by the system as a right of conquest and not theft. Despite their space in his inventory, he hadn’t come close to meeting his maximum capacity.

After stowing all the visible armor, he picked up her sword and stashed that away too. It was a Sword of Avarice but less evolved than Hunter’s own. It would make a good treat for his blade but wasn’t worth complicating his fighting style by actually using it. Although duel wielding swords sounded cool, Hunter had a hard enough time avoiding stabbing himself with his own blade. Plus, he would be restricting his ranged fireball attacks. That was a strategy that he wasn’t willing to give up unless there was a significant advantage.

Hunter returned to the woman’s corpse and began a more detailed search of her belongings. He tried to remain respectful. At least, as respectful as someone can be while stealing from a dead person. He found a Ring of Holding on one of the woman’s claw-tipped fingers. For a moment, he was unsure of how to proceed. He didn’t know how the rings worked. If the storage item was owned by someone else, would he still be able to reach inside? He wasn’t sure, but something in his heart was pushing to find out.

Moving items in and out of a storage ring was an exercise in visualization. With his own ring, Hunter needed to imagine the item that he knew was within and bring it into the material world. Since he knew everything he placed in his own ring, it was an effortless task to relax his mind enough to pull out the imagined contents. It wasn’t quite the same with someone else’s storage. He didn’t know what was within, so he adjusted his visualization accordingly. It took him a few minutes to get the knack, but he was pleased when he finally discovered the trick. To look into someone else’s storage, he had to visualize his intent and keep his thoughts blank as he allowed the contents of the ring to present themselves in his mind’s eye.

What he saw within the ring wasn’t anything special. There were rations, various kinds of potions, a water bladder, a coil of rope, a set of caltrops, and finally, a compass.

The mundane items went into Hunter’s storage ring. Some of the things he wasn’t sure he would ever use. Who would ever need a rope? But the rest of the contents seemed potentially useful. Hunter was already imagining how to use the caltrops. The last item was somewhat of a curiosity. He pulled out the compass and studied it.

Physically, it wasn’t much to look at. It was a small gold, circular object with a lens in the center. The exterior of the ring was studded with tiny rubies. In the middle of the lens, a blood-red needle moved without any rhyme or reason. It didn’t react to Hunter twirling in place. The arrow merely pointed to the various emerald-colored arcane script. The warrior focused on the description that his Covetous Eyes skill presented for him. 

Infernal Rift Compass (Lvl 10): This common-tier item is used by the Infernal Horde to navigate important landmarks within a Rift. 

Like the notification was the signal the compass was waiting for, it exploded into a cloud of red dust. The particles flew into Hunter’s chest and disappeared. Feeling like he had been doused in frigid water, Hunter watched as his mini-map on his HUD subtly shifted, and his eyes widened.

There was a location marked nearby.