LEVEL EVERYTHING UP in my Eldritch Tribe

Christopher Borgias felt the familiar surge of magic wrap around him as the teleportation spell activated, a swirling vortex of energy pulling him and his fellow clan members toward their next mission.

He had trained for centuries in the real world, but this was the moment he had been waiting for—the chance to prove his worth inside the Ruined Magical World.

His mind wandered back to the grueling training he and his siblings had endured.

The Borgias family, notorious for their mastery in the assassin arts, had pushed them beyond their limits from a young age.

Their instructors had been ruthless, ensuring that every trainee understood that weakness had no place in the family.

Christopher could remember the cold, biting wind of the mountainous training grounds where they had been forced to scale cliffs using only their fingers and toes.

He shuddered at the memory of those nights when they were left blindfolded in the forest with nothing but a dagger, tasked with taking out trained hunters without being detected.

He whispered to himself as the teleportation magic engulfed him, "The nights we were thrown into freezing lakes, told to swim until we either drowned or found the hidden exit. The constant beatings, the endless drills, the suffocating magic tests."

Christopher had come to love the thrill of the chase, the adrenaline of the kill, but there had been moments where he thought he would break under the pressure. His skin still bore the scars from the time he had failed a simple test of speed—his punishment had been to fight blindfolded against six wolves.

The searing pain of their claws tearing into his flesh still haunted his dreams.

He remembered the frustration and anger bubbling up inside him as he clawed his way to the top, desperate to outperform his peers. But no matter how hard he trained, there were always those who stood above him, more gifted, more ruthless, more favored by the family.

His mumbling continued, his voice tinged with bitterness. "Lucius," he spat the name out as though it left a bad taste in his mouth. "That arrogant bastard. His ability to blend into shadows... he's so damn perfect. Faster than me.

Always faster." He clenched his fists as he thought of Lucius, a cousin who had always been the golden boy of the family.

He remembered Lucius pulling off feats that had left even the elders speechless, like when he had managed to assassinate three top-tier mages without them even realizing they were under attack.

Then there was Aria.

Christopher winced as he thought of her. "The Silent Blade, they call her," he muttered darkly.

Aria's mastery of illusion magic had set her apart from the rest of the family, and she could weave shadows into weapons of pure destruction. He had seen her drop entire squads of enemies in seconds with her deadly, graceful strikes. She never missed a step, always calm, always precise, her cool demeanor and deadly efficiency earning her the nickname.

"Varus too," Christopher mumbled, his eyes darkening. Varus, with his mastery over poison magic, had become infamous within the family.

Every time they sparred against each other, Varus' strikes always left him staggering, weakened by the invisible poisons that seeped into his veins from even the slightest scratch. And there was Kira, the youngest of them all, but one of the most ruthless. "She's a monster," Christopher whispered. "A prodigy." He shuddered at the thought of her bloodlust, her insatiable desire for the kill.

But despite the doubts that gnawed at him, Christopher couldn't allow himself to fall behind.

No, he would show them. He would surpass them all. He would claim his place in the Borgias family, as a peerless assassin, and it would all start here.

Suddenly, the teleportation magic dissipated, and Christopher's body snapped to attention. His feet touched solid ground, and he found himself standing inside the dungeon. It was not what he expected.

The dungeon was eerily silent, the air heavy with a strange, unsettling stillness. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the area.

"What the...?" he muttered. This was supposed to be one of the most dangerous flora dungeons in the Ruined Magical World.

The flora here was infamous for its aggressive, mana-infused defenses, and its dangerous plant-based creatures. But as he looked around, all he saw was ruin.

There should have been vibrant gardens around here that the family told them, all he sees where nothing but torn apart memory, the said beautiful flora reduced to nothing but smoldering remains.

Only charred stems and blackened soil remained where there had once been lush greenery.

Christopher's brow furrowed in confusion. "Where are all the plant beasts?" he wondered aloud. "Why is everything destroyed?" He shook his head, trying to dismiss the rising unease in his gut. Maybe this was just part of the dungeon, a trial before the real test.

After all, this was one of the most dangerous dungeons, and their target was supposedly a peak Initial Cycle twelfth-stage beast.

If they could take it down, the reward from the higher-ups would be immense.

"Focus, Christopher," he muttered to himself as he stepped forward, his body blur like a shadow through the remnants of the garden. His movements were fluid and quick, a testament to his years of training. He sped up, his figure blurring as he raced through the dungeon with precision.

To him, maybe this was just a test, and the more creatures he killed, the greater the reward he would receive from the higher-ups. He could almost taste the victory, the thrill of knowing that he had outperformed his rivals.

And yet, a seed of doubt gnawed at him. The fear that Lucius, Aria, Varus, or even Kira might surpass him still lingered in his mind. He could feel the pressure building. "I have to keep moving," he whispered. "I can't let them beat me. Not again."

Christopher's thoughts whirled as he pushed himself forward, his body a blur of motion. But then, suddenly, something felt wrong.

His instincts screamed at him, and he came to a sudden halt.

His senses sharpened, and he could feel something lurking in the shadows of the dungeon. His eyes flickered toward a darkened corridor, and without hesitation, he dashed toward it.

What he saw when he arrived froze him in his tracks.

One of his classmates, a fellow Borgias assassin he had trained with for years, was lying on the ground, his body mangled and torn apart.

Blood stained the floor, and pieces of him were strewn everywhere, his limbs barely recognizable amidst the carnage.

The sight was horrific, and Christopher's stomach churned with nausea.

His eyes widened in shock, and his breath caught in his throat. Before he could react, movement caught his attention.

Emerging from the shadows were the creatures responsible for the gruesome death—Lyerin's monstrous Cragar'Throm Clan.

They were massive, horned beasts with menacing, blood-red eyes.

Their bodies were twisted and grotesque, some towering over Christopher, while others were hunched over, their limbs knotted and deformed. Their fangs gleamed in the dim light, and their breath came out in low, menacing growls.

Christopher's heart pounded in his chest as all the hair on his body stood on end. His survival instincts screamed at him to flee, to get out of there as fast as possible. He spun on his heel, ready to dart away, but before he could make a move, a sharp pain shot through both of his feet.

"Agh!" he gasped, collapsing to the ground. He scrambled to look at his feet, and that's when he saw it—a small rock, as big as a fist, had been hurled with incredible force, breaking the bones in his feet.

The pain was excruciating, and he could barely move.

Christopher looked up in horror as the monstrous beasts slowly began to approach him, their snarling faces filled with malice.

Their footsteps were heavy, each one sending tremors through the ground as they closed in on him.

His breathing quickened as panic set in. He reached for a small black marble in his pocket, hoping to deploy a smokescreen to make his escape. But before he could activate it, another stone was flung toward him, striking his hand and sending the marble rolling away.

"Dammit!" Christopher hissed in pain.

It was then that a voice echoed through the dungeon, cold and mocking.

Christopher flinched at the sound, his head snapping toward the source.

It was a voice that seemed to pierce through the very fabric of his thoughts, dragging up memories he had tried to bury.

"Ah, the Borgias training," the voice drawled. "So much effort, so much pain. You poor children. Trained for centuries in the real world, weren't you? Forced to push yourselves beyond the limits of mortals just to become tools for your family. Do you remember?

The endless nights of torture? The blood that was spilled? The bones that were broken? And all of it... just to prove yourselves worthy of the Borgias name."

The words sent a shiver down Christopher's spine. His throat tightened as the voice continued, its tone filled with malice.

"Your family pushed you to the brink of death, made you kill your friends, just so you could survive. All those dreams you had—of rising above, of being the greatest—were they really yours or just what the family had planted on your little heads?"

Christopher's breath quickened, and then he saw the person's feet. When his eyes reached the person's head, the person would say, "Sadly, it all ends here. Welcome to the end of your pathetic assassination line, little dreamy assassin."