Sirus and Riria were out exploring again, attempting to find themselves the exit to this horrid place.

"No luck," Sirus sighed and turned to Riria, "Looks like we have to go down further."

She groaned and replied, "At least we brought enough water for a couple days, and any food we need we can just kill those stupid boars for."

"Living doesn't mean liking." He said with a depressing smile.

Riria rolled her eyes, "Tell me about it."

Despite their distaste, they continued onwards and ventured deeper and deeper into the cavern system.

Some time later Sirus set his eyes upon some ruins not unlike the one where he had gotten the item to upgrade his sword and that other mysterious pearl.

Finding another ruin all the way down here was quite odd, seeing as neither he nor Riria had encountered another ruin besides the ones where they had gotten the pearl and healing treasure respectively.

He changed direction and walked towards the ruins, inspecting them closer.

The ruins were made of similar material to the previous one, faded gray stone with odd carvings scattered around randomly. This particular bunch of collapsed stone looked to have been some sort of prison or law enforcement building, made evident by the jail-like cubicles scattered in rows.

Sirus turned back, "Riria! I found some ruins, they might be worth looking through." He said while kicking some rubble.

"Yeah, yeah coming." She said whilst quickly walking over.

They ventured through the remains of the prison together and eventually stumbled upon an odd room in the nearly collapsed basement of the ruins.

Sirus slid his hands along the dust-covered gray stone walls of the room. The reason this room was odd was because there were carved runes scattered all along the surface of all four of the walls surrounding them.

They looked somewhat similar in design to the runes on his sword, so they could be used in similar ways, ie. to enhance his sword further. Just in case they could be used in such a way, he tried to commit as many to memory as he could.

"You wouldn't happen to have a piece of paper and a pencil would you?" He asked Riria.

She gave him a flat look, "You know as well as I do I don't have anything."

He chuckled and walked around the room.

'What can I use these runes for? I can't even remember them properly, it's not like I have photographic memory.'

But an idea suddenly came to him. He couldn't draw it with a pencil, but he could draw it with his flames. He quickly chose a random rune on the wall and prayed that this didn't end disastrously.

"Wrathful Sword Series: Wrath Painting." Activating the skill, he attempted to sketch the rune on the wall to the best of his ability. The rune was by no means simple, and included many sharp ends and curved lines, but he eventually finished and stepped back.

In front of him stood the same rune as the one on the wall, except it was a multitude bigger.

He took his sword out from his recently relocated hip-sheath, covered it in more flames and swung at the rune.

Riria's voice sounded out behind him just before the recently launched rune hit the wall, "Wait-"

The rune hit the wall.

It instantly faded away upon contact, effectively doing nothing.

'Oh well, not everything can work out.' He sighed inwardly.

He turned back around to Riria, "See, nothing happen-" He abruptly cut off his words upon laying eyes on her.

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A large humanoid with a serpentine lower-body stood behind Riria, but that wasn't the worst part. Its scaly black hand was impaling her abdomen, and the light from her eyes was quickly disappearing.

He let out a scream, "NO!"

The humanoid took its hand out of her stomach and kicked her to the side.

Unexpectedly it then began to speak, "Follow me human and I will let you liv-" Sirus didn't let it finish.

"Wrathful Sword Series: Incendiary Flash!" He flashed forwards right in front of it and swung his sword at its neck.

"Tchk!" The sword bounced slightly off its metallic scales.

Sirus' eye flared in anger as he activated another skill, "Flame Dragon's Maw!"

A serpent-like dragon grew at the end of his blade and he quickly moved it in the direction of the humanoid, the dragon opened its mouth upon reaching it, consuming it whole.

The dragon imploded with the scaly beast still inside of it, slathering it with flames and melting its molten scales. But even then it wasn't enough.

He again rushed through the 3 meters to the humanoid, unwilling to let it react and called out "Circle of Flames!" His sword flew through its lower body and severed its tail-legs whilst all the accumulated flames from his previous skills quickly grew brighter and brighter. Not even a second later the flames detonated, blasting the serpent-human and all its scaly limbs to oblivion.

Sirus quickly rushed out of the flames and to Riria's side.

"N-no no no n-no no no no no" He turned her on her back and looked at the gaping hole through her stomach, "You c-can't die!"

While constantly repeating "no" he opened his cloak's spatial storage ability and pulled out all of his health potions, pouring them on the wound and into her mouth. A green light of vitality shined around her body but had little to no effect on her fatal wound.

"Work damn you!" Tears flowed out of his right eye, and evaporated after coming into contact with his left eye. He let out a maniacal half-laugh, half-sobbing sound.

"Hahahahaha- Ah!" He laughed whilst the expression on his face rapidly contorted, ranging from a despairing tear-stricken face to an insane laughing expression.

"I can't lose you! I'll lose? Loss?" His mind slowly frayed, "Where? Who?"

Suddenly a deep thrum came from his still-open spatial storage, he angrily turned his face towards what dared to disturb his raving and his eyes landed on the semi-forgotten pearl he had gotten from his first ruins. Its deep crimson-red center was glowing and vibrating.

His head momentarily cleared and he picked it up.

[Vampiric Soul-Binding Pearl

Description: Bind a newly departed soul to an item.

Vampiric Prefix: ???]

Sirus stared at the panel. It seemed his level had increased enough for him to finally be able to see its description, although the effect of the vampiric prefix was still hidden from him. 'Bind a newly departed soul to an item? Departed soul? I can save Riria!'.

He quickly activated the pearl. The glassy surface split apart to form a translucent glass lotus, with a solid red sphere in the center.

Suddenly a golden ball of light revealed itself above Riria.

"Is that... her soul!?" He exclaimed.

The golden ball flew into the center of the lotus and touched the red sphere, making the sphere deeper crimson.

[Select an item.]

"An item..?" He said hesitantly, "Right, it needs to bind her soul to something..."

The only item he would likely keep around with him, and really the only item he had besides his cloak, was his sword.

"Sword it is then."

He selected his bastard sword.

[Are you sure. Y/N]

He selected 'Yes'.

His sword and sheath flew off from his waist, whilst the sphere flew out of the lotus. The items touched together and the sphere seemed to turn into a liquid similar to blood.

First the liquid coated the entire blade, slowly turning the previously silvery metal blade into a crimson steel with a matching sinister luster. The liquid didn't stop at only the blade and continued onto the hilt and handle.

The hilt turned from an ordinary and slightly plain steel guard into a dark-crimson hilt with ornately smithed dark iron brambles and lotus planted on the center of the hilt.

The handle changed from a plain brown leather grip into a black leather grip, whilst the pommel of the sword transformed into a sharp ruby.

[Vampiric Blood Bastard-Sword

{Legendary Weapon}

Description: An ornate and extremely powerful blade fit for a vampiric overlord.

A soul has been binded to this weapon, giving it new abilities

Abilities:

Soul Ability: The consciousness of the soul can transform the sword into a vampiric humanoid body, as well as mentally communicate with the wielder whilst in sword form.

Blood Detonation: Blood that comes into contact with this blade will instantly explode

Flames of Wrath: Cuts from this sword will ignite wounds with the flames of your rage

Runes:

Rune of Unbreaking XIV: This weapon is nigh-unbreakable

Rune of Catastrophe: Wielder of this sword may experience bad luck

Rune of Sharpness XIV: This weapon will stay ever-sharp, never dulling

Rune of Air Splitting X: This blade will meet no resistance from the air.]

"Amazing..." Sirus let out a pent-up breath. "Where...?"

He looked around, somehow expecting Riria to be somewhere in sight.

A soft giggle rang out. "Over here!"