After slamming into the incline, Freddy landed on his rucksack and spun, sliding down the rest of the short hill as the baggage on his back prevented him from rolling, eventually grinding to a halt behind a large boulder obscuring him from the gorels just ahead.
Thanks to his durability and thick armor, he didn’t suffer any significant injuries, but his jacket was slightly damaged by the scraping, and it had heated up considerably from the friction.
Sophia followed soon after, sliding down elegantly as she landed right beside him in a crouch.
“What the fuck are you—” he scream-whispered at her but—
“Shhhh!” she silenced him. “They’re going to hear us!”
“No shit!” He gesticulated at her, choking an imaginary neck as the visor on his helmet hinted at the furious expression beneath.
She ignored his open threat and peeked over the boulder, taking a sneaky look at the mass of monsters ahead.
He, on the other hand, was staring at the cliff, looking for any place he could go back up. But it was hopeless. It was too steep, and the rock was too smooth. Perhaps a professional climber could do it, but he didn’t like his chances. The most likely outcome of trying to climb up would be tumbling into an angry mass of gorels that spotted his escape attempt.
Taking a deep breath, he silently worked himself up into a crouch beside the unhinged woman. Her eyes scoured the gorel-dominated stone depression, God-knows-what going through her mind. Was she planning an escape route? The fact that she was the one who got them into this situation hinted at something far less reasonable.
Still, they had gone unnoticed. The hordes of gorels actually worked in their favor, masking the noises they made in the terrifying sounds of hundreds of angry sloth-monkeys dragging their spoon-nails and claws across the dusty soil.
It was exactly as she’d said.
The monsters were adept at maneuvering the tunnels, as their senses were almost entirely designed to handle just that. Out in the open, with the vast number of the things marching in massive lanes, they couldn’t immediately recognize intruders, even if those intruders walked right up to them.
That didn’t mean that things wouldn’t get nasty if the creatures did spot them. But it did mean that their chances of walking away without triggering a stampede were higher than might be readily apparent.
As he was trying to puzzle out a way out of the situation, the woman’s body shifted as she started getting up. The single fastest reflex reaction he had ever experienced made his arm lunge at her like an angry snake, grasping her forearm in a vice grip and pulling her down. “Don’t you fucking dare!” he barked the warning, making extra sure she could tell that he wasn’t making an empty threat.
“Don’t worry!” she placated with a grin. She raised her untrapped arm, and with a puffing sound, a fancy shortsword appeared in her grip. “I believe in you!”
Then, she slammed the flat end of the metallic sword into the boulder, producing a shrill ding.
Instantly, the sounds of gorel movement quieted. The army of monsters near them crawled to a stop, all of them aggressively sniffing the air and keeping their ears peeled for whatever had produced the sound.
Unspeakable terror crawled up his spine as he watched the woman raise the sword again, bringing it down before he could do anything to stop her from doing so.
Ding… the sword rang.
A moment later, a deafening cacophony of hissing, growling, and screeching thundered around them.
“Why!? Why!?” he begged as he released the madwoman and got up, looking around for any escape. What he saw stunned him. “Oh… shit!” he yelled as he swung his fist to knock away one of the many gorels in the middle of jumping at him with their claws out, ready to tear him to pieces.
The woman laughed joyously, leaping into the crowd of monsters as she swung her sword, sneaking it through tiny openings with impeccable technique as she swam through the mass of bodies, somehow avoiding the numerous attacks flying her way.
He barely blocked an aggressive swing by a guard, which left deep rends along his bracers, and leaped back, trying to make space between him and the thickening crowd of creatures aiming for his life.
His Hydraulic Flex activated with a warm flow coursing through his legs as he kept jumping back, but there was nowhere to run—with a sheer wall of stone behind him and a tsunami of monsters ahead of him, all he could do was stand his ground and fight.
Without the time to remove his gloves, he cast Gore Knuckles through them, tearing them apart. The jagged dagger appeared in his left hand, held in a reverse grip. A Flowing Strike kick flew forward, crushing a gorel’s skull as his dagger hand punched another, the Gore Knuckles cracking and splintering, fragile as they still were; then he slit a clumsy slash across yet another one’s face.
The weapon drew blood, so much of it, in fact, that the gorel backed away and collapsed, likely falling unconscious due to the sudden drop in blood pressure.
Within moments, the mass of monsters grew far too thick to manage; the only thing providing any defense was the quickly accumulating wall of gorel corpses, but that wouldn’t keep him safe forever.
In less than twenty seconds of fighting at full power, liberally using Flowing Strike and Hydraulic Flex whenever necessary, he was at a mere 34% essence, and with just another four Flowing Strikes, he would be out.
He groaned, “Blood Sacrifice!” he yelled as he resorted to his last-ditch effort.
But Bloodshed didn’t respond.
“Why!?” was all he could muster as a pile of gorels swarmed him. Their claws and teeth tore his armor to shreds, but his body didn’t take much damage past the surface layer of skin; even that was quickly sealed by the rush of lifesteal as he retaliated.
His dagger barely stayed in his grip as he tore one gorel apart after another, and relatively quickly, he found himself buried beneath a literal pile of corpses, ironically safe as the dumb beasts kept piling on him. But this sanctuary was temporary at best.
The mass of monsters above kept piling on until there were so many of them that he was suffocating. Their attempts to claw past the dead only hastened this, as he was literally bathed in blood that flowed past the pile of bodies.
“Blood Sacrifice!” he tried again. “Blood Sacrifice!” and again. “Why doesn’t it work!?”
Master… Bloodshed’s voice suddenly echoed in his voice.
“Bloodshed!” he called. “Where are you!?”
Calm yourself, Master… it said.
“Not the time for—aaargh!” he screamed as his legs were finally reached and several gorels scraped at them, leaving deep gashes and nearly shearing his feet off.
‘ never come first, it continued. I am a consequence of your existence; I am the terror of spilled blood.
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“Gaargh!” he kept screaming, trying to pull his legs back.
Don’t worry, Master… Bloodshed is always by your side— its voice suddenly cut out, its presence seemingly vanishing.
He had no time to think about the cryptic words. After much struggle, he finally mustered the power to tuck his legs back into the mass of corpses where they couldn’t be reached by the other monsters.
The stench was overwhelming. Everything around him stank like a wet dog dripping in blood. But in the moments of panic where he lay buried beneath a pile of bodies, barely able to move, he suddenly found himself calming down. This wasn’t his first time in a situation like this, was it?
Shedding the cautious delver, he allowed the instinct-driven animal who got him out alive last time to take over. His left hand gripped the dagger tightly as he started slashing. The jagged blade carved through the mass of gore as he slowly shifted forward.
A small but continuous stream of lifeforce trickled into his body, patching his bleeding form almost instantly and sealing his flesh back up with a layer of temporary tissue created by first-aid-quality healing.
It didn’t take much for him to dig himself back out, where a gorel slammed bloody claws right into his helmet, nearly piercing through it, but a swing of the dagger left its arm bleeding profusely as it barked, squealing and backing away.
Several others rushed to fill the gap, crowding like bees before his vision, making it difficult to tell them apart. Merely ensuring that his grip on the dagger didn’t slip, he carved away. Eventually, he created enough space.
With a burst of as much essence as he could muster, he pushed himself out, just barely breaking past the vast mass of monsters gathering around the pile of corpses. The chaos played in his favor as many of the creatures failed to keep up with his location, continuing to search for him in the pile of gore.
Among the cacophony of screeching, finding a lone man who smelled of little other than gorel blood was almost impossible for the dumb beasts.
This would be his way out.
The spikes on his fists had been ground down to nothing more than a cracked, thin coat of blood, so he used a bit of his essence to reconstruct them. It was incredibly essence-efficient, costing him a minuscule sum to build them back up, even if he wasn’t fond of losing more blood.
They wouldn’t last long, but the added roughness to his punches made them effective enough that he didn’t need to repeatedly use Flowing Strikes to do damage.
Every gorel he killed replenished a tiny portion of his essence. Killing monsters resulted in a rush of ether that pushed his star further, and just like with any other form of gathering, a small portion of that ether was converted into essence—very little, however.
Every kill resulted in only around 1% essence return, making it nearly impossible to do anything other than slow down his dwindling reserves—or so he thought.
There was a massive crowd of gorels running after him, but in front of him, they were relatively scattered. If one jumped him, he did his best to dodge and kick them aside, leaving most with at least a slight bleeding injury.
It was enough to slow him down, and several times, that cost him a nasty slash on his legs or back. Even though minimal-quality healing swiftly stopped the bleeding and first-aid-quality healing patched him up, at that level, the recovery couldn’t preserve the function of his body. He felt his legs growing weaker; his balance was wobbly, and his steps were uneven.
Although his gore knuckles cracked apart with every punch he landed, they still transferred the dagger’s effect, making his attacks result in excessive bleeding.
At a certain point, he started feeling seemingly random rushes of ether flowing from somewhere back in the crowd behind him.
Are the ones I hit bleeding out!? he wondered.
The state of his body was worsening, and with the saving grace of recovering some essence, he allowed himself to swing a Flowing Strike at the head of one of the creatures. The blood knuckles shattered with the impact, together with the gorel’s skull, and the influx of lifesteal finally brought the healing quality up to natural, where it could at least somewhat recover his function.
His legs felt less numb, and his back stiffened. Another Flowing Strike crushed the knuckles on the other hand and a guard’s chest, pushing the healing quality even further.
The thrill kept him pushing forward and attacking anything he came across. His moves were clumsy, and he often failed to do much, but he kept pushing, emboldened by the seemingly unceasing flood of essence flowing into his soul.
Just as he regained his confidence, he spotted that lunatic fighting a different crowd, and seeing her in action made his breath catch in his throat.
She made it seem so easy.
Weaving in and out of action, using their limited senses to herd them like a shepherd herded sheep, whenever they gathered, she pulled back into a nearby clearing, always ensuring she was somewhere where a wall wouldn’t cut off her path of escape.
Although she was impressive enough without a weapon, her swordsmanship was something to behold. She performed fancy jumps and flips with minimal effort, slipping her sword through the smallest of openings to cut into her opponents’ bodies. He watched her take a nasty slash across the back and heard her screaming, but a mere second later, she used her talent to heal the injury and kept fighting, remaining unshaken.
What a monster, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking.
As an archhuman, she was incredibly weak—yet her talent, skill, and physical capabilities allowed her to close the gap enough to stay alive even against overwhelming odds.
His distraction cost him as he tripped over a small worker and tumbled across the ground. “Shit!” he screamed as he watched the horde descend upon him.
Out of desperation, he used Create Water at maximum output, activating both stars and turning it into Perished Water.
His soul screamed in agony at the immense output of essence as he felt every last drop drain out of his star like juice from an orange crushed by a hydraulic press, causing nearly 53% to vanish instantly.
But the results were spectacular. Several barrels worth of water manifested above him just as the crowd of gorels descended. Not even he was spared by the attack as numerous stingers, bites, and scratches assaulted his skin, some leaving deep lacerations, but the rush of lifesteal was more than enough of a sign that his attack was doing more to his enemies than to himself.
The water washed over him and the surrounding monsters, flooding the area and pushing him away. Once he finally left the hellish substance, feeling every inch of his skin dripping in blood, he heard it—every gorel in the surrounding area was screaming so loudly that it nearly deafened him. Throughout the next few moments, he felt his essence gradually trickle back up to 20%, marking around twenty kills.
“Holy shit…” he breathed out.
As the water disappeared, all that was left was the accumulating river of blood as he watched dozens of gorels bleeding from their legs and cut feet.
At that very moment, the sun blinked out as the day suddenly turned to night. Rather than curse or yell, he remained quiet. His sight was severely compromised, and he didn’t even see the gorel that bumped into him, but as it kept screaming and running, it was likely that it hadn’t noticed him either.
The chaos his stunt had created manifested a cascading effect of screeching and panic, causing the monsters to scatter in every direction. The vibration beneath his feet and distant thundering hinted at a veritable horde of them returning to their nest to either see what was happening or to rush into their comrades’ defense.
He didn’t see anything. The darkness of the night in this realm was near-absolute, and without a light source, his eyes had zero feedback. He couldn’t move. For the time being, the gorels were too disorganized to pinpoint his location, but it wouldn’t take long for order to reestablish itself and for them to track him down.
This was pretty close to the worst-case scenario. If it was still day, their sight would be worthless at tracking him down, but at night, he would have to use a flashlight, which would put a spotlight on him, resulting in most of the nest flooding him and tearing him to shreds.
He breathed quietly as the seconds turned into minutes, and the wild screaming gradually quieted into scattered yelps. His careful breathing slowly turned into panicked gasping for air.
Suddenly, he noticed something. It was the ether shell for Blood Sacrifice. He felt it quietly resonate, and he felt confident that if he used the ability at that moment, it wouldn’t fail him like last time.
Then, he heard the sounds of footsteps. They were quiet but undeniable. One of the gorels was approaching him. He mentally locked onto the shell for Blood Sacrifice, prepared to use the ability at any moment. It was far from a guarantee of victory, but it could create a distraction while he escaped. He was 100% confident that the monster would scream out any moment and attract the others to—
But it whispered instead, “Hey… Follow me…!” It was the lunatic. She grabbed his hand and pulled him along somewhere, and he decided that he had no alternative but to follow her.
Every hair along his skin raised as he heard the occasional gorel stop near them and sniff the air. But every time, he heard the sound of a rock landing somewhere twenty meters away, likely thrown by the woman to create a distraction. It worked, and before long, they stepped onto an incline and climbed their way up, leaving the sounds of shuffling behind them.
“Wooo, that was close!” she said, taking something out of her dimension ring with a pop of air. It was a flashlight, he noticed, as she turned it on just in time to illuminate the fist flying directly into her face.
He punched her with everything he had, only holding back on using Flowing Strike, and sent her tumbling across the ground. “What the fuck is wrong with you!?” he screamed. “Are you out of your goddamn mind!?”