Keahi sat cross-legged on a large piece of driftwood, watching ripples spread across the dark water where Talia had disappeared moments ago. He'd been doing this for seven days, and the routine had become painfully familiar. The artificial sun of the dimensional dungeon cast strange shadows on the water's surface, making it harder to track movement below.
His fingers absently traced the smoothed, wet surface of the dark wood beneath him. In the past week, he'd managed to level [Life Cloak] skill exactly twice as he hid from the monsters. Twice. Meanwhile, Talia had grown exponentially stronger, absorbing Attributes and, apparently, also gaining new Skills.
Few things had humbled Keahi more than being in the presence of Talia. He had heard the stories. He had heard of Placid City and what this girl had been capable of. But for some reason, perhaps his own arrogance, he had believed that the distance between them wasn't a chasm. It wasn't a giant rift but a small crossing that he could jump over at any time with enough luck and effort. However, coming with Talia inside the Forbidden Vessel had been a wake-up call.
Describing her powers as incredible would have been a gross mischaracterization of what she had managed so far. Talia had basically spent the majority of the last seven days underwater, occasionally reemerging with a half-mangled carcass of a monster and using Blood Siphon to transfer its vitality to Keahi since there was no real food in there other than the Abyssal Creatures themselves. And lacking the means to cook one up, which didn't appeal to either of them, they could only survive thanks to Talia's Skill.
Keahi reasoned that if they had gotten in here with anyone else, without Talia's power, they would have probably starved long before reaching the center of the dungeon. He had joked to Talia that he felt emasculated in the beginning, but the joke was turning more and more into reality every day. He felt like a baby bird, with Talia being the mama bird, occasionally coming to the nest with sustenance.
He was so useless. He felt so useless that he couldn't even get food for himself. He started contemplating eating raw shark out of pride. However, that prospect had been as unappealing as just being fed by the girl's Skill. And not only that, it would also be way more disgusting.
And so all he really did, since he couldn't face one of the creatures without losing his life, was to brood constantly and think about his family and resent them, thinking that if they had done their job correctly, if his uncle had not been a madman, he would have perhaps been able to keep up with Talia, as monstrous as her powers were. But as he saw clouds of blood blossom in the dark waters, tinging this artificial sea red, he doubted even his last thought. Especially considering the new Skills Talia had gained.
* * *
Seven Days Prior
[Soul Domain has completed the absorption of the monsters.]
[You have absorbed a Skill from Titanic Shark.]
[You have absorbed a Skill from Hammerhead Bow.]
[You have absorbed a Skill from Shortfin Harpoon.]
[You have learned ‘Mana Well.’]
[You have learned ‘Bullet Arrow.’]
[You have learned ‘Hyperswimming.’]
[Your Skills are resonating.]
[Your Skills are about to undergo a Fusion Evolution.]
[Auxiliary Skill - Missile Swimming has been consumed]
[Auxiliary Skill - Hyperswimming has been consumed]
[New Auxiliary Skill obtained!]
[Ika Tai - Tide Surge]
[Ika Tai - Tide Surge reaches Level 25!]
Talia was shocked.
It was extremely rare for her to absorb Skills from her enemies. In fact, she had been incredibly lucky that she had gotten [Soul Domain] from Maleko. What was even more shocking was that, apparently, since she had consumed the three monsters through [Soul Domain]—and just one type of each—she had managed to get all of their Skills.
She focused on each notification, feeling information streaming into her head about the Skills. [Mana Well] was a natural reservoir of Mana in addition to what she could already store. If her instincts were right, it doubled the amount of Mana she could store in her body. And more importantly, the amount of Mana she could store would increase the more she leveled the Skill up.
[Bullet Arrow] was the Skill from the Hammerhead Bow. To be fair, she wasn't a caster, but she could always use a good offensive Skill. Now, though, the most interesting Skill was [Hyperswimming]. Apparently, from what the Skill told her before it had been merged with [Missile Swimming], unlike [Missile Swimming], which relied on a coating of Mana to enhance her speed underwater, [Hyperswimming] relied on attributes. It converted the power of Strength and Agility into explosive motion that would propel her as fast as—and perhaps now faster than—the Shortfin Harpoon.
She dove back into the waters, trying out her new Skill. Her body reacted automatically as if she'd always known how to swim. She snaked her body like a fish, feeling her muscles explode with power, feeling them convert all her attributes—Strength and Agility—into empowered swimming. On top of that, her new Skill, [Ika Tai - Tide Surge], combined the aspects of the two Skills together.
Now she could not only swim like a fish, as efficient and terrifying as the Shortfin Harpoon, but she could also part the water with a coating of Mana like the Abyssal Cuda had done, thanks to the [Missile Swimming] Skill. She moved at such speed that she could barely process what was happening while she moved. She now understood why the Shortfin Harpoon had such a crude method of attacking—while swimming this fast, she didn't really have time to think.
She stopped, floating in the water, and tried something else. Now she tried moving laterally in dodging movements, finding out that [Ika Tai - Tide Surge] helped her with this unnatural motion—well, natural for fish, not for Talia. At this point, thanks to the combination of the two Skills, Talia felt more confident in her dexterity underwater than she did above its surface, and she couldn't wait to put the new Skills to use.
* * *
The Present
[NAME: TALIA]
[Age: 17]
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[Class: Lifestealer Lv. 47]
[Rank: Adept]
[Primary Mana Channel (Water): Level 8 {Surging}]
[Secondary Mana Channel (Blood): Level 8 {Surging}]
[Secondary Mana Channel (Dark Water): Level 3 {Awakened}]
[Core Skill #1: Blood Siphon Lv. 33]
[Core Skill #2: Hemomancy Lv. 56]
[Core Skill #3: Eyes of the Abyss Lv. 37]
[Auxiliary Skill #1: Ika Tai - Tide Surge Lv. 51]
[Auxiliary Skill #2: Crimson Wisdom Lv. 27]
[Auxiliary Skill #3: Blood Confluence Lv. 34]
[Auxiliary Skill #4: Tailwind Lv. 5]
[Auxiliary Skill #5: Ika Toto - Blood Tide Lv. 32]
[Auxiliary Skill #6: Magic Funnel Lv. 34]
[Auxiliary Skill #7: Soul Domain Lv. 51]
[Auxiliary Skill #8: Mana Well Lv. 21]
[Auxiliary Skill #9: Bullet Arrow Lv. 15]
[Form Skill #1: Cursed Form Lv. 5]
[Strength: 66]
[Agility: 29]
[Constitution: 24]
[Intelligence: 38]
[Wisdom: 27]
[Charisma: 51]
[Free Attributes: 24]
[Talent Trees:
Bloodborne Warrior (1)
Carmine Thunder (1)
Sanguine Guardian (1)
Hemomantic Artisan (1)
Crimson Sage (1)
Life Thief (1)
]
[Free Talent Points: 29]
Talia had been killing monsters non-stop and the results could only be described as astonishing. She had gained more than a hundred cumulative levels in her Skills and heaps of Attributes from the powerful Abyssal Creatures inside the Forbidden Vessel.
Maybe Professor Iakopo was right, she thought as she looked at a swarm of monsters approaching her. Going underwater for months would have probably meant gaining enough power to rival the strongest Professor, maybe even a weak Elder.
Talia was already confident she could face the weakest Professor at the Academy without trouble at her current level. In fact, even though she knew that even the weakest Professor had a Level in the 50s, she was already much stronger than anyone at her level thanks to the ability to absorb Attributes. She could probably take most Professors around Level 55.
She had been killing roughly a dozen Titanic Sharks and little less than twenty couples of Hammerhead Bows and Shortfin Harpoons per day, which had skyrocketed her growth. The Forbidden Vessel seemed to teem with monsters. She had probably met more monsters inside the Forbidden Vessel every day than she had in all of her stay in the Abyssal Jaw Dungeon.
Now, as she felt Keahi and her getting closer to the center of the Dungeon, with the driftwood leaving space to more complete remnants of ships and gigantic platforms of wood, it seemed like after half a day of meeting no monsters, they had all gathered together to eliminate the threat that had invaded their Dungeon.
Talia looked ahead, seeing roughly twenty Titanic Sharks and double their numbers in couples of Hammerhead Bows and Shortfin Harpoons.
She was essentially facing a small army of the most dangerous monsters she had met so far in her life. But there was not one sliver of fear—in fact, if anything, she was feeling hungry.
The first to make their moves were the Shortfin Harpoons. They launched themselves in droves, leading a coordinated attack. Talia had found out that the Hammerhead Bows could somehow communicate with the other sharks and direct their movements. So it wasn't surprising to see the Shortfin Harpoons being able to coordinate so well that they didn't even bump into each other as they formed a virtual barrage of spears coming her way.
But if the monsters had initially been so fast that Talia had trouble following them, the increase in her stats and Skills made them look almost slow. More importantly, all the points that she had gotten in Intelligence had increased her reaction time. So, wielding her glaive, summoning a terrifyingly sharp blade of Mana crystal that doubled the range of the weapon, she moved so fast that after-images formed in the dark waters of the Forbidden Vessel's dimensional dungeon.
Of the roughly twenty monsters that attacked her, half of them collapsed immediately, torn to shreds by her attacks. But she knew that this had been a strategic attack from the sharks, because next, the Titanic Sharks and Hammerhead Bows used the openings Talia left to unleash a barrage of gigantic crescents of Mana and arrows.
Not even Talia, with her current speed, could dodge every single blow. But she let the bullet-like arrows pierce her body without a care in the world. In fact, she swam faster than any of the sharks present toward the gathering of all the casters, feeling [Ika Toto - Blood Tide] empowering her from all the damage she had just delivered to the Shortfin Harpoons.
She took so much damage that by the time she was in the middle of all the creatures, one of her arms hung uselessly by her side, and her glaive had been blown out of her hand—well, her entire hand had been blown off. Only her heart and head she had carefully protected from all the attacks.
But once she was in the middle of all the monsters, she smiled like a crazed woman, feeling a pit open in her stomach and using the Skill that she had leveled so relentlessly in the past seven days, the Skill that she had leveled the most out of all of hers, the Skill that she had taken from the strongest Chosen, and that she almost felt grateful for to the foolish young man who had tried to kill her: [Soul Domain].
A three-hundred-foot plane of blood extended in all directions, immediately capturing all the monsters around her and tearing them to shreds at a speed that would have made anyone present, even the most strong-willed, feel weak in their knees.
The blood-stained waters churned violently as Talia's [Soul Domain] devoured everything in its path. The massive sharks, regardless of their size or power, were reduced to nothing more than essence to be absorbed. Their vitality flowed into her through countless crimson tendrils, healing her wounds even as she processed their power. Her severed hand regrew in seconds, flesh and bone knitting together as if time was running backward.
Notifications flooded her mind, an avalanche of gains from the wholesale slaughter of nearly sixty high-level monsters at once. The sheer volume of information threatened to overwhelm her consciousness, but her heightened Intelligence helped her process it all without losing focus.
A surviving Shortfin Harpoon, fast enough to evade the Soul Domain, charged her, trying to impale her. She just punched out with the hand she had just regrown and the monster exploded in a cloud of blood and guts.
Her new Perk had made even her hands lethal weapons.
Perk: Burst Impact
Unlocked when reaching 50 Strength Attributes.
The effect of Strength increases by a further 30% on top of your Feats of Strength Perk.
Your blows are empowered and deliver additional vibrational damage based on your Strength Attribute.
She looked at some of the notifications in her head.
[You have defeated Level 42 Titanic Shark!]
[You have absorbed Lv. 42 Titanic Shark Life Force.]
[+81 to your Primary Mana Channel (29547/200000 to Level Nine)]
[+15 to your Constitution (56/200 to 1 Constitution)]
[+15 to your Wisdom (76/200 to 1 Wisdom)]
[You have defeated Level 38 Shortfin Harpoon!]
[You have absorbed Lv. 38 Shortfin Harpoon Life Force.]
[+42 to your Primary Mana Channel (29589/200000 to Level Nine)]
[+14 to your Agility (157/720 to 1 Agility)]
[+14 to your Strength (248/280 to 1 Strength)]
[You have defeated Level 42 Hammerhead Bow!]
[You have absorbed Lv. 42 Hammerhead Bow Life Force.]
[+81 to your Primary Mana Channel (29670/200000 to Level Nine)]
[+19 to your Intelligence (487/660 to 1 Intelligence)]
[+9 to your Agility (166/720 to 1 Agility)]
Many more kill notifications rung in her head but she ignored them.
[Hemomancy reaches Level 57!]
[Eyes of the Abyss reaches Level 38!]
[Ika Tai - Tide Surge reaches Level 52!]
[Ika Tai - Tide Surge reaches Level 53!]
[Blood Confluence reaches Level 35!]
[Ika Toto - Blood Tide reaches Level 33!]
[Ika Toto - Blood Tide reaches Level 34!]
[Magic Funnel reaches Level 35!]
[Soul Domain reaches Level 52!]
[Soul Domain reaches Level 53!]
[Mana Well reaches Level 22!]
Talia slowly turned toward a distant point in the dark waters and looked at it with [Eyes of the Abyss]. She saw a spike of Mana, as if something had just awakened.
The Boss, she realized.
She had finally found it after a week of searching.
And there, she also expected to find the secret to the Cursed Form.