They left the relative safety of the cave, the Bloodfangs were the closest camp of the three and the one Sam had the closest experience with. It wasn’t a problem getting there in good time. It was still relatively early in the day for an attack, but this time he thought it might be somewhat smart to make it official. It most likely worked out for the Shadowclaw when he took out Viper, the number hadn’t increased yet at least. And if he pops in at times to keep it that way, it might solidify his position.

Though he was the one who killed the Bloodfang leader, nobody knew that for a fact, so he couldn’t bank on any reputation or threats based on that. But whoever had taken over shouldn’t be on the same level as him, so it was time to set a new standard. He wanted off this island asap, the promise of a reward was a strong bonus, but he just wanted off this place.

Trekking through the jungle, they managed to get to the edge of the camp without meeting anyone on the way. Having learned from earlier failures, Sam tried to sneak the whole way just in case. Though this made the trip take much longer time, dying on the way didn’t help him so it was worth the effort. On the way there he was contemplating how to do it, he didn’t want to just stroll in and start killing, it would certainly make a point but enough ants can overwhelm most targets, and he didn’t want to risk it. He could stroll in and shout a challenge, that might be the safest option. As with Viper he needed to make himself seen and they needed to know that he was the one doing this, or his threats wouldn’t work.

Peering into the camp it was hard to see who was the leader, if he was even there. Having already decided that a challenge was the best option, he banked on the threat of him walking in there with a Beastfolk in tow to not only make them think he’s a different class, but the fear factor of just having a tamed monster would help.

It didn’t take many seconds before he was noticed and approached by some people, who looked expectantly wary of not just him but the monster following him. Taking the moment to loudly announce himself with a challenge, he inhaled deeply and shouted.

“I challenge the leader of the Bloodfangs.” He had forgotten the second word of their clan name, it didn’t matter, he just wanted to get this over with.

The people who came walking over had stopped when he shouted, others were looking in his direction and murmuring began. He could barely overhear some words here and there, not enough to get any meanings. In the following moments, several more people came out of various tents or walked over to see what the commotion was.

A few moments later a man came walking through the crowd. He had short blonde hair, was covered in scars, wore a long leather coat, looked surprisingly strong for his slender frame and had a single dagger in a sheath fastened to the front of his belt.

“I hear you’re challenging me.” He commented in a louder-than-needed voice as he extended his hands making a point out of his presence.

“Oh? You have yourself a little pet?” His voice turned condescending as he referred to Dia.

Sam was fine with him believing her as his pet, that probably had him think it was part of his needed skillset like Viper did. Now all he needed was an opening.

He didn’t respond to his statements and just waited for the next move.

“Well, speak up, if you’re challenging me, I expect you have a story or something to say?” The man turned around and sounded like he was speaking more to the crowd than to Sam.

“I don't have much to say. But I thought you learned your lesson when I killed your last leader. I’m here to do the same again.” Sam was a bit surprised at himself, that sounded almost as insane as this man looked. It wasn’t wrong but he managed to connect to something more offputting sounding than he planned.

The man turned back towards Sam with a surprised expression, still sporting a crowd-pleasing smile through it. “Oh, You killed the Butcher?” He put a taunting tone on ‘you’, signalig that he didn’t expect Sam to have done it.

In his defence, Sam looked somewhat scrawny, so he couldn’t blame him for not believing it.

“On what grounds do you challenge me? You want to be the leader of the Bloodf-” The man had started a rant that just annoyed Sam. He understood the need for theatrics and crowd-pleasing, but Sam didn’t care.

Interrupting his monologue, Sam answered right away. “I intend to complete the Island Quest, you’re in the way of that.” Abstracting down to the simplest truths felt surprisingly liberating and simple.

“Stop with whatever schtick you’re doing, you going to defend yourself or not?” Sam pulled the Shadow Fang in his left hand and the Moonblade in his right. He wasn’t a melee fighter but at least this should trigger the new leader to react appropriately.

Sam could attack him right away before he was aware, but he feared that wouldn’t give him the proper reputation as strong, someone else could just take over if it felt safe enough to do so.

The man looked annoyed enough, pulling his dagger from his front sheathe. The blade itself was long and slightly curved towards the tip, the edge was serrated in sections almost like it was meant to tear instead of cut, and the tip tapered down to a very thin point. The side of it had runes covered it and small barbs and grooves ran along the blade side. It didn’t look like it was meant to create clean wounds but rather tear and rip as it was used.

“Well, since this is a duel, I assume your pet will stay out of it.” The man commented in a way that sounded more like an order or statement rather than a question.

“Well, I never said duel, I said I challenged you, but sure, that’s fine.” Sam commented dryly as he made the same hand signal he did to Dia earlier when she hid in the bush.

She reluctantly stepped back, and this was the moment Sam’s opponent decided to charge. Sam couldn’t pretend he didn’t expect it to happen that way, partly because he intended to do something similar. Having already manifested the needed Psyhands he placed them across his body. One over each eye, two on his crotch and two on his fingers holding the weapon, the man had a brief moment of surprise as he felt things touch him before Sam Force Pulsed.

Letting out a grunt of pain the man managed to hold onto the dagger, using his free hand he clenched his eyes as his legs squeezed shut around his crotch. None of this caused any damage but it gave Sam a few valuable seconds. All of his weapons found themselves pulled by Pyshands, the two he had in his hands were also handed over to them, and they were flung towards the unexpected target.

[ Critical hit, double damage. ]

With as many weapons he used at once, and with the bonus to critical chance he got from Eagle Eye, it was mathematically a high chance for him to crit often, sadly it was one of the crappy daggers that landed this round. No weapons triggered their effects either.

However, with his target not expecting ranged combat to this level, he didn’t have much chance to dodge and took all 11 blades to his torso.

This caused a bit of damage, even though Sam didn’t have any damage scaling he could apply, his compensating for this with several weapons worked wonders as long as they hit, and if they couldn’t see, they couldn’t dodge! Though he didn’t know how high Defense rating the man had, and based on the results of the attacks he looked damaged but surprisingly fine. He either had very high health or at least some form of defence.

Swinging widely as a result of not seeing what he was attacked by, he eventually was able to get the pain out of his eyes and focus properly. Seeing Sam without weapons he smiled.

“Hah! You threw all your shit, now it’s my turn!” He stomped towards Sam with a twisted smile, looking like he was going to have fun with this.

“I didn’t throw shit.” Sam replied as he pulled in all weapons from behind him.

[ Critical hit, double damage. ]

This time it was the short sword dealing the crit, which was a better weapon to have that happening with. It again did a decent amount of damage, forcing the man to widen his stance.

With the weapons now hovering between them, this was probably the last free hit Sam was going to get.

Sam’s opponent pulled a potion and chugged it before Sam got to properly react. Looking especially adept at that movement it was surprisingly smooth. Looking significantly better when the potion did its job, he didn’t waste time and darted in towards Sam.

As he ran towards him, Sam did his best to attack but he seemed to have figured it out, actively dodging the incoming weapons, only the Moonblade and the crude cleaver landed, however, the cleaver landed a Critical hit, which was something.

This damage didn’t even slow him down, the man looked extremely comfortable with pain as he got within striking distance of Sam, delivering a powerful thrust. Doing his best to redirect the blade with all available Psyhands it wasn’t enough and the blade dug itself deep into his gut.

[ Armour, Defence 40 has lowered the damage. ]

[ HP: 20 / 40 ████░░░░ ]

Even through the armour, this took half his health, he had no level-ups to heal himself with this time and he didn’t have a potion. Another hit, critical or not, would take him down.

The man smiled widely as he pulled out the blade with a sharp tug.

[ Armour, Defence 40 has negated the damage. ]

[ Status effect; Bleeding 5 applied. ]

Sam’s eyes widened, that was a horrible status effect, immensely overpowered. Once he landed a hit and if it landed, then... at his current health he would be dead in only a few seconds.

He panicked slightly, pulling in all his weapons to attack the man, only two of the cheap daggers landed, and though one landed a critical hit the man didn’t seem to care much and shrugged it off.

In his dodging of Sam’s weapons, he had created some distance between them, he sported a twisted smile as he kept his distance, walking back and forth with an almost euphoric expression as Sam was bleeding.

“What’chu gonna do? You’re fucked now, son.” He laughed, and the people surrounding the place joined him in his laugh.

[ Status effect; Bleeding.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

The victim will bleed out over time, it deals damage every few seconds until the target heals either naturally, with an ability or magic, or with potions. ]

Just considering this for a split second, natural healing took about an hour, perhaps it would be different for bleeding but 5 bleed damage every so often gave Sam only seconds.

[ Status effect; Bleed, doing damage. ]

[ HP: 15 / 40 ███░░░░░ ]

In the panic of the moment, Sam sent his arsenal towards the man again. One of the cheap blades again did damage, and the Moonblade landed, again causing decent damage to him. But though he looked the worst he had done so far, he still looked surprisingly fine with how he handled himself.

[ Status effect; Bleed, doing damage. ]

[ HP: 10 / 40 ██░░░░░░ ]

Sam was running out of time, he needed to do something to stop this, his expression grew more urgent, more panicked. Perhaps the man had more potions, he needed something, anything. Reaching out he pulsed around his eyes again, but the man powered through, not even clenching his eyes and with a wide smile and forced-open eyes he laughed. “That shit’s not gonna work again, fucker!”

He was extremely good at dodging, and based on the damage he had taken vs how much damage could be seen on his body, his coat most likely had some Defense rating on it. As he was gloating he pulled out another potion from a pocket or container under his coat, but as he uncorked it Sam reached out with a Psyhand and plugged the opening, metaphorically putting the finger in the opening and holding on.

[ Status effect; Bleed, doing damage. ]

[ HP: 5 / 40 █░░░░░░░ ]

The man tried to drink from it, but it didn’t work at all, putting the vial to his lips there was an invisible force between them. Using his knife he tried to scrape whatever was the way off, but the Psyhands could be ‘hit’, but not hurt nor would Sam feel any pain from this. As he was struggling with this Sam launched another attack at him as he put more Psyahnds on the potion and yanked it towards himself at the same time.

Though he was not dodging as much, the panicked moment for Sam meant that only two of his weapons landed, one of them, the cleaver, landed a critical hit. The man barely looked more wounded than before, but in that brief moment, a multi-hand yank worked! The potion came loose and flew towards Sam. Using the same motion he unplugged it with the Psyhand and fed it to himself.

[ Status effect; Bleed, negated. ]

[ HP: 9 / 40 █░░░░░░░ ]

Sam internally cursed, this was a shit potion, 10% healing for him meant 4 Health restored. However, it stopped the Bleeding and at least gave him time. A minor victory, though short-lived.

“That was my last potion, shitstain.” The man looked livid as he started running towards Sam. Another stab and it was going to be over.

Activating his shoes, he flash-stepped to a location behind the man, further away, closer to the crowd around them. The men standing there jumped backwards as he suddenly appeared. The bandit leader looked confused for a brief moment as he looked around.

Sam didn’t waste this moment.

All his weapons flew towards the man and though some missed, and one crude dagger landed a critical hit, the heavy-hitting weapons did their job, ending with the Moonblade digging its thicker steel into his neck before he fell forwards.

[ Experience gained: +25 000. ]

[ Levelup +1! ]

[ XP to lv.15: 19 365 / 81 920 ██░░░░░░░░ ]

[ Bonded Beastfolk; Dia, levelled up! ]

[ Dia XP to lv.10: 0 / 256 ░░░░░ ]

Sam had no idea what the logic behind PvP XP was, but given that he got more from this man than he got from Viper was... strange. Viper netted him just 10 000, and this man gave him over double? However, he didn’t intend to complain and took the level up with extreme gladness. Triggering the effect right away he put the point into Spirit as he usually did. He had a brief thought of if he should put it in Vitality but at the moment it felt more appropriate to keep with the logic he had done so far.

He also wondered how Dia’s levelling was going to happen, if she fixed that herself or if it fell on him, given her contract details, the latter was probably the case, but she was not in any immediate danger right now so she could wait.

As his health was restored, and his wound closed, he felt amazing, both from the healing effect and also from the victory as he walked over to the limp corpse of the new ex-leader of the Bloodfangs.

Not waiting, he started rummaging through his pockets, noticing Dia’s extremely relieved and happy expression now that he didn’t look wounded or near death. Taking his good time to rummage through his items, his weapons hovering around him ready to strike at anyone trying their luck.

Since his potions were consumed, the only thing that remained was his dagger and his coat, nothing else of interest. Taking a brief second he took a glance at their stats.

[ Bleeding Edge - Rank D

Base Damage: 20

10% chance to inflict Bleed 5. ]

[ Inflicters coat - Rank E

Defence: 5

+30% to activate any percentile ability on a skill or item.]

The dagger immediately became part of his swarm, but the Coat wasn’t extremely interesting. Though the passive ability was amazing for his collection of weapons having percentage activation abilities, he couldn’t forgo the vest he was currently wearing. It was also as shredded as the robe from Viper, so there were second thoughts about how useful it was.

[ Quest: The Island

Dominant forces: 2 ]

In the moment he had used to strip the man of his gear, the quest had updated, and Sam was happy that it was working already.

Bundling things up he got up from his careful looting and looked around at the other people surrounding them, still looking surprised and uncertain of what to do.

“I’ll say the same to you as I did the Shadowfangs.” Sam shouted, giving them a second to process things before continuing. “You’re free to do what you want, but if I see another leader on the quest, I’ll be back.”

As he started to leave, one brave soul spoke from the group. “So, we’re just going to let you take the reward alone?!” He sounded very judgemental and annoyed.

Sam turned towards the voice, with all his weapons snapping towards the same rough angle, forcing the group of people there to step aside, singling out the poor man who spoke. Though Sam’s reaction was somewhat dramatic, he couldn’t blame the man for thinking this, after all, everyone here was probably striving for the same hope for the reward.

“Yes.” Sam replied dryly. “However I intend to bring anyone who wants to go back to Earth with me, those of you who like this place can stay.”

This caused a lot of murmuring in the group of people, he expected that many would be annoyed, and many would be relieved but in the end, he didn’t care what they thought. He wanted the people who didn’t deserve to be here to have the option to go back. Though there would probably be those who deserve being here, that would get the chance to go back, he also didn’t care much about that, he just wanted to get off this island.

Nobody stopped him as he left this time, disappearing into the jungle with Dia following him.

As soon as they weren’t able to see the camp anymore, Sam started running. Dia looked confused but matched his speed without effort. He just wanted to get some distance between them so he could properly relax. Aiming to run in some random direction in case he was chased, he ended up in a a suitable spot to stop, and take some deep breaths and finally relax.

“Good lord that was stressful.” Sam sighed after a minute catching his breath. Feeling surprisingly good about the upgraded stamina with that one point, though it might be an odd thing as his Vitality was 3, and a 30% upgrade is dramatic at lower levels.

Dia tilted her head as she got closer to him, wondering what he was doing. She didn’t say or ask anything but rather just sort of existed close to him. Taking this moment, Sam checked her information and found that he did indeed have similar control over her levelling, much like he had on Elara.

Wondering if it was best to level up her Vitality or Dexterity, he decided it was best to give her some health... Getting some flashbacks to the lightning attack that almost killed her, he simply put the point in there and confirmed.

He felt a pulse of energy from her, one she felt as well based on her wide eyes and tails puffing up. Seeing her health recharge to the new maximum of 150 was also very comforting, but his thoughts were derailed as she got up properly and started spewing lots of words he hadn’t heard before in a very happy tone.

Halfway toning out, Sam wondered if they should go back to the cave before it became dark, or just visit the last camp. Both of their levelling had put them back to their prime meant that this was a good time.

Sam had mixed thoughts, but all things considered, it was probably a good thing to use this moment to scout them out, at the very least. He vaguely remembered where the last camp was and Dia could probably help there.

Letting Dia complete her monologue, ending in a wide happy smile as she looked pumped, he motioned for the direction he intended to go, heading towards the rough area of the last camp. She more than happily followed, looking content just moving about with him.

Having no idea what to expect of the Iron Reavers, the nickname of Ironhand on their leader, didn’t sound like a good thing.