Freddy swung the door open, walked into Thor’s office, and sat on the chair right in front of Big Man himself.

“Hey there, Fred,” Thor greeted him with a raised eyebrow. “You need something?”

“I cleared them,” he said.

“You cleared what?”

“The realms you tasked me with clearing, of course.”

Thor froze, staring at Freddy’s face for a long moment. He then slowly, exaggeratedly turned his head to look at the calendar hanging on the wall. “It’s been four days.”

“Yup.”

“You cleared 17 realms in four days?”

“24, actually.”

“And how on New Earth did you do that?”

“I’d love to tell you, but I won’t tell you.” He grinned wryly. “This is one of those secrets I’d prefer telling no one.”

He thought back to just a couple of days ago, to the moment it all started.

It began once he learned that his newly acquired ability had something of a weakness.

***

“Motherfucker!” Freddy shouted as the giant fire bear blew Infernal Breath his way.

He couldn’t dodge.

The flames licked across his scaly skin, scorching his defenses and frying the entire surface of his body, leaving him grimacing in agony and coughing out powder that had moments ago been his lungs. His massive sword cracked into bits, his Knuckle Blade on his right hand and the Gore Knuckles on his left hand both fell apart into powder, while his Crimson Wing Shields were barely holding together.

He stood in the middle of a vast field, surrounded by dozens—nearly a hundred—fire bear corpses. The big mamma bear, a three-star monster with a mantle of flames and fur as red as a summer sunset, growled at him with fury in her eyes.

He could tell by her body posture that she was convinced that the battle was over. Freddy stood there, dropping to one knee as flakes of burnt blood scales chipped off him, looking more like an overcooked meal than an actual threat.

But while he might have looked cooked well past perfection, he was far from being out of the fight.

With a roar, he jumped to his feet and conjured a javelin. The pendant hanging about his neck lit up with a golden light, and golden lines etched themselves along the surface of his spear. With a mad swing, he launched the weapon right at the bear’s head. With its guard down, the fire bear didn’t react in time, losing an eye for its error. While it reeled in pain, it lost the second eye, and a moment later, a third Blood Javelin pierced through its heart, leaving it shuddering on the ground as the last its flames extinguished and its life faded away.

Freddy fell to his knees, coughing out even more ash and blood as he looked down at his hands, observing the chipping, cracked scales. “I can’t believe I forgot about this.”

Suppression of rank. It was a force that made abilities cast by those with more stars directly overpower abilities cast by those of fewer stars. To be more exact, suppression halved the power of the lower-ranking fighter’s abilities.

It didn’t apply to talents, spirit abilities, or raw physical power, but it did apply to regular abilities.

All of Freddy’s blood equipment, as well as his Crimson Dragon Scales, were a product of his abilities. This meant that against enemies with more stars than him, they’d be significantly suppressed, as evidenced by the fact that a single Infernal Breath had completely devastated all of his equipment.

Thankfully, the effect wasn’t as bad as it could be. The durability of his hardened blood wasn’t affected by suppression. But his abilities played a major role in reinforcing the durability of his blood constructs, and that was targeted by suppression.

His Blood Ring would help mitigate this, and, at least with his weapons, his Warrior King’s Pendant would have a huge impact once he grew its power a bit.

But the main, and the most convenient fix he had available was to simply conjure his equipment with double-star activation.

The thing with multiplying ability power was that every ability had a different interpretation of what that meant, and this interpretation was determined during the creation of the ability.

For example, Freddy’s Blood Javelin conjured two javelins instead of one rather than making a single javelin sturdier. But his other blood constructs would, indeed, be conjured with more durability if he double-starred them.

The main problem was that this was a bit wasteful, at least for the time being.

Multiplication affected the major concepts of an ability. The problem here was that most of the abilities for creating his weapons didn’t really add all that much. They simply hardened the blood in a specific shape, with the stage of his Crimson Mercury doing most of the heavy lifting. This would change later on, but for the time being, the additional durability wasn’t exactly worth its price in essence.

Crimson Dragon Scales was the only exception to this. An expensive one. Double-starring it would gobble up 50% of his essence in a single go. A quarter of his total reserves. The mere thought of that made him wince.

But as he gave his chipping, fried scales a second look, he had to acknowledge that he possibly didn’t have a choice.

Sighing, he pushed himself back to his feet. The ability still wasn’t developed. He’d have to see what it could do with an upgrade or two, first.

Now wasn’t the time for that. His last opponent was dead. He was on the brink of disengaging from the fight. And just as he had the thought, he felt a certain shell in his soul click as it unlocked. “Blood Sacrifice,” he chanted.

He could instantly tell that something was different.

The tar-like blood of the fire bears gathered at an incredible speed, far faster than any of his previous summons. In a matter of seconds, he had a large pool of pitch-black blood standing above him.

What surprised him the most was that he no longer felt like he was actively channeling the ability. Usually, he’d have to focus on keeping the process stable, but now, it was as if the blood had a mind of its own.

Slowly, it converted into bloody mist and began to gather. He had collected quite a bit of blood. Not just from the fire bears, but from basically all the monsters in the small B-class realm he was currently in.

Thus, he had expected the result to be as it usually was. But he could immediately tell that his expectations were about to be subverted.

The blood essence the ability created was usually wild, unstable. It would rampage almost like it refused to be subject to his power. This made sense. The blood essence wasn’t his own, so it was hardly a surprise that it wouldn’t listen to him. This was the main reason why Bloodshed’s form usually tended to be… unstable, to say the least.

But this time, that clearly wasn’t the case.

The blood essence still tried to resist, but it was overwhelmed by a superior power. And it slowly started to compress.

The bloody mist gathered into a shape barely taller than Freddy himself as it finally crystallized, allowing Bloodshed to take form.

Freddy gaped in shock.

Wearing its new shawl, its eyes glowing beneath the hood, was Bloodshed, just a bit over two metres tall. There were no extra limbs or crazy shapes. It looked exactly as it did when released, just… taller.

Freddy gulped as he felt the power of his summon. It was compressed and dormant, like a pool of wrath.

“Lookin’ good there, pal,” Freddy complimented with a slightly nervous grin.

Bloodshed looked at its arms as it tested its mobility. “I have more control over my form than expected.”

“Ha! No shit! This is amazing!” Freddy grinned. “Now let’s go see what you can do.”

Two days was really all it took to clear the aforementioned 24 realms.

In this new form, Bloodshed was truly amazing. It was capable of so many new things.

The most surprising new power it could display was actually something he should have seen coming. It was capable of dissipating an “aromatic” bloody mist, one that made every predator in a certain radius go wild with desire and rush straight toward them. It was the main reason why clearing the realms went so quickly, even if it did nearly get Freddy killed a few times.

That being said, even when surrounded on all sides, Bloodshed was hardly ever under pressure in these fights. As it got more experience using its fresh set of powers, it also got more efficient at using them.

At first, it seemed like its new powers would come with a major downside—it exhausted its energy a lot quicker. But it didn’t take long for them to find a solution to this problem.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Bloodshed could now simply absorb more blood to replenish its reserves. It couldn’t go above its initial power as determined by the summoning but could easily keep itself topped up if there were enough enemies.

For a long moment, Freddy was excited at the prospect of keeping Bloodshed summoned for hours, or even days at a time, or hell, even indefinitely! But, unfortunately, this wasn’t bound to happen.

As a concept, “bloodshed” was an extension of “slaughter.” Kill things and spill blood, and once the dust settled, ta-dah! Bloodshed had been created!

A site of bloodshed, to be exact.

It was a concept that was inherently tied to a location of where the bloodshed happened.

As a consequence, Bloodshed couldn’t move all that far from where it was summoned. The range was generous, yes, but ultimately finite. The further away it went, the weaker it became, until it completely unraveled and vanished.

Of course, nothing stopped Freddy from simply using Blood Sacrifice again. And he did exactly that. Many times.

And given what they knew now, he and his little buddy experimented quite a bit. Bloodshed could still choose to spawn as a giant monstrosity, but now, it had a bit more power over the details. It was still a bit unstable, though. Extra heads and limbs were almost always added past a certain height, and even when they weren’t, the proportions of limbs were off.

In order to spawn as a giant, it sadly had to sacrifice some of the energy it would otherwise be able to use for its blood powers, but the inverse was also true, although it couldn’t spawn any smaller than two metres in height.

After only two days, he was practically done with his work, other than making sure that there weren’t any dangerous non-predators sticking around in the realms. That was what he spent the other two days doing.

Finally, he made his way to Thor’s office, where he sat and smirked at Thor’s bewilderment.

The man, for his part, managed to remain calm. He squinted his eyes at Freddy as his lips parted to reveal a knowing smile. “It’s a spirit ability, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The method you use to kill things so quickly.”

“I would deny it, but that would be an insult to your intelligence.” Freddy shrugged. “There aren’t many other things it could be.”

“I knew it!” Thor snapped his fingers then squinted harder. “Let me guess, you’ll keep the details a secret?”

“Yup.”

“What if… What if I manage to guess exactly what it is? Would you tell me if my guess is correct?”

Freddy chuckled. “Knock yourself out.”

Thor hummed as he tapped his chin. “It has to be something that comes without permanent consequences as a cost, otherwise you wouldn’t be using it willy-nilly.”

“That much should be obvious,” Freddy teased with a grin.

Thor snapped his fingers and pursed his lips as he pondered. “I am guessing it’s something like a toxin—no! A disease…” he said with raised eyebrows, probing Freddy for signs of confirmation. “A disease that spreads from target to target.” He settled into his chair. “But!”—he raised a finger—”it comes at the price of infecting you first, which is perfect because of your talent. Boom! How’s that?”

“Not even close.”

“Damn it!”

Freddy laughed. “But, points for creativity, I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah… Anyway, I guess you can proceed with exploring the first five steps next, Mr. Speed.”

“Yeah, about that,” Freddy scratched the back of his head.

Thor slumped. “Don’t tell me you’re already done!?”

“No, hahaha. No. Rather, uh… I was going to ask you something. So uh… what exactly do you mean by explore? I’m guessing I’m supposed to be a bit more uh… a bit more delicate?”

Thor shrugged. “It’s not high etherology, dude, just see what you find and report it to me. Mark any particularly dangerous passages and note valuable areas. Feel free to kill whatever you want as long as you don’t turn worthwhile realms into wastelands.”

“Got it.” He got off the chair. “Well… Guess I’ll continue my work.”

And so he did.

Soon enough, he got into a rhythm, and the days turned into weeks.

He spent most of his time scouring the interspace, looking for valuable areas and noting important details. The expedition doubled as training, and he finally got the opportunity to grow some of his weaker abilities.

His new weapons were getting a great workout, and before long, they began reaching new stages. And given that he was in the interspace, he had all the sentient ether constructs he needed to upgrade them.

For five days a week, he would delve and explore, and for the weekends, he would work on extracting his organs.

During the little free time he had, he searched for necessary resources.

After two weeks, Thor finally called him over to hand him the cursed item produced from his clothing. It was a thick rope necklace, with the metal pieces of clothing being turned into a small circular medallion. It was unassuming and simple.

As was already obvious ahead of time, it was an ordinary cursed item. But that by no means meant it was useless.

It provided him with a 13% discount on his water abilities. That was huge for tempering. Even though he wouldn’t use it in combat, it was still useful enough that he decided to keep it for himself.

For a whole month, he stuck to this regime, and his work was rapidly paying off.

GATHERING:

Second star—199% essence capacity

2-star satellite

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Lake of Blood: Stage 2—89% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 2—46% Progress

Purifying Crimson Spring: Stage 1—83% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—98% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—99% Progress (Ready to Upgrade)

Water Body: Stage 1—61% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

Gore Knuckles: Stage 2—34% Progress

Blood Javelin: Stage 1—95% Progress

Absorb Blood: Stage 2—3% Progress

Accelerate Blood Projectile: Stage 1—98% Progress

Sanguine Beheader: Stage 2—2% Progress

Knuckle Blade: Stage 1—67% Progress

Crimson Wing Shield: Stage 1—89% Progress

Dissipate Wave: Stage 0—80% Progress

Crimson Dragon Scales: Stage 1—10% Progress

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—99% Progress (Ready to Upgrade)

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 2—37% Progress

Create Water: Stage 1—53% Progress

Hydraulic Throw: Stage 1—32% Progress

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage 0—9% Progress

Ghosts of the Drowned: Stage 0—9% Progress

SPIRIT ABILITIES:

Blood Sacrifice

Leviathan’s Fury

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Warrior King’s Pendant: Adds 8% damage and 8% durability to equipped weapons.

Blood Ring: -9% essence cost, +8% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed. Attacks inflict moderate bleeding.

Ocean Medallion: -13% essence cost for water-affinity abilities.

He had seen massive growth across the board, with his weapons seeing the most notable improvement.

His Absorb Blood went up a stage, and he upgraded it with the concept of “efficiency,” further dropping the base cost to 3% essence per litre of blood absorbed.

Sanguine Beheader, his glorious executioner's sword, witnessed not one, but two different upgrades. It got by far the most use out of all his new abilities, and with every upgrade, he liked it more and more. After upgrading it with “moisture” and “mass,” he finally felt like the weapon had reached a satisfying baseline of power.

After the two upgrades, the once lightweight sword weighed around 40 kilograms. If double-starred, that went up to 75. It wasn’t 80 because only 35 of those kilograms came from the concepts tied to the weapon, while the rest came from the weight of the actual material.

Although he felt that the baseline weight was quite comfortable, even his stubborn ass could admit that it was way too heavy when double-starred. He could still wield it, but the inertia hauled him around too much. To use it comfortably, he’d have to commit an upgrade to Abyssal Depths. That would make him heavy enough to provide some additional counterweight.

Knuckle Blade received a simple “piercing” upgrade. And while it miffed him a bit, he had to admit, he got far more use out of the Knuckle Blade than his Gore Knuckles. Gore Knuckles was still great against exposed flesh, but it was as Thor had said—more often than not, he had to go through a layer of defense. For that purpose, Knuckle Blade was far more useful.

For the Crimson Wing Shield, he went with “blocking.” It had an interesting effect, one that surprised him a bit. It made the shields block one attack very effectively—two if double-starred.

The power of this block was quite incredible, but it came with a significant downside—he couldn’t choose which attack to block. They would block the first attack he received, even if it wasn’t particularly threatening. This practically forced him to only use the ability once he was in the middle of blocking a potent attack. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was certainly an unwelcome inconvenience.

Next up was Hydraulic Throw. It received a simple “speed” upgrade, allowing him to swing faster and throw the weapon with greater power.

And finally, his Crimson Dragon Scales had reached stage 1. Freddy's choice for the upgrade was easy—he went with the generic concept of “blood.” The ability was already quite deep and complex, so a minor upgrade across the board was an obvious choice.

But out of all his upgrades, the ones he considered the most valuable were the ones to his unique cursed items.

Given the number of three-star monsters he culled, Warrior King’s Pendant grew by leaps and bounds. Not only did it substantially alleviate the issues caused by suppression, the damage amplification was very noticeable. Its growth slowed down quite quickly, however. It was likely that he’d have to fight even more powerful opponents to push it further. Well, it was already a massive gamechanger, so it wasn’t like he was disappointed.

His Blood Ring had similarly seen further growth, most notably to the bleeding effect. It still wasn’t up to par with what the dagger could do on its own, but it was getting there.

Despite the growth he’d achieved, there was something that was starting to trouble him—his growth was stalling. Not just of his most advanced abilities, but of every ability he had.

He couldn’t help but sigh at this.

The primary reason why was because of his spirit abilities. They slowed down his growth quite noticeably, and even if they had a lesser effect on abilities than his star, it was still there. And the second reason was that he simply had too many of them.

Yet, despite this, he still had one more ability he wanted to form.

During his time in the interspace, he’d seen numerous deviants and unique monsters. One of these was a sort of iron hedgehog that could curl up and launch a bunch of needles in every direction.

This whole time, Freddy had been thinking of which small throwing weapon he could use. But he had to be honest with himself—he wasn’t a small weapon kind of guy. And because small weapons were so light by default, he always felt like they didn’t allow him to get the most use of his strength.

But once he got a face-full of iron needles, he was reminded of something.

All the way back when he first arrived in this city, he had done something similar to someone.

When he fought Jason Gem, he had conjured a small mass of fragile blood and used Flowing Strike on it, causing it to shatter and send a bunch of shrapnel in the man’s direction.

He hadn’t thought much about that after he did it. It was a makeshift move he hadn’t had much faith in. But now, he was starting to realize that there might be something to it.

In one of the C-rank realms he had already fully cleared, he sat on the ground, focusing on a small, football-sized chunk of blood metal. It had a number of seams running through it. While it looked like a solid ball, it was more of a bundle of chunks of blood, designed to fall apart into a burst of shrapnel when hit by a Flowing Strike.

Some of the insights he got while meditating on the tablets came in quite handy.

When he first got the idea, he was humoring it more out of boredom. A cute little experiment, one might say.

He had no clue just how devastating of a weapon he was about to create.