Blood Feud

Humans love making lists about everything and anything. One of their favorite topics is about what the deadliest animals in the world were. I remembered reading those lists too. One animal that they often put on top of such lists was the Hippopotamus, a common hippo. They were murder machines the size of a tank.

Shifters were the same, their primal form came from the smaller but no less dangerous version of the animal that was supposed to be extinct for a long time. I had no idea where vampires found the animals to experiment on them, but I’ve just learned that my sire was over forty thousand years old, so what did I know. The experiments with the thirst had changed it significantly in the shifters. The mutated hybrid form before me didn’t quite look like the images of the Andrewsarchus that I had seen. His torso was still human shaped, only thick and muscled beyond anything I had ever seen.

His hand was larger than my head and tipped with thick, sharp claws-like appendages that were more like hoofs that were shaped like claws.

His head was surrounded by thick but short mane of black fur, and his massive snout opened to show wickedly sharp teeth in front, and thick molars in the back.

He roared as he charged, his vest and pants barely staying on his body. Every step he took shook the ground as if he had gained twice his mass in barely a span of seconds.

He moved faster than I expected.

I dashed to the side, evading the attack that ripped a massive chunk of the tree trunk that was behind me, sending debris flying everywhere. I could smell such a thick and rich scent of the thirst on him. His body was filled with it, the same way mine was. Only his was changed, different. I’ve never encountered anything like this before, not with any other shifter I’d met before.

His blood sang to me, and the thirst within me answered. It wanted a taste.

Zhang followed, attacking in a flurry of swipes each meant to take my head clean off. He was obviously enraged because of what I did to his grandson, not that Li would die from that. There was no silver in those bullets, and he would heal quickly, even from the head wound.

The shifter came after me, trampling like a wild beast he accused me of being. And yet, his every movement seemed too precise, too strong. He wasn’t as fast as me, but he was definitely just as strong, even with my new skill boosting me. His story about killing Elder Vampires before suddenly seemed a lot more truthful.

If he was as old as he claimed, he had far more experience than me, I couldn’t allow him to dictate the tempo of the battle.

I had one chance to turn the tide and end it before he could overwhelm me, and I knew just the thing. If there was one thing I knew about old people, it was that they were set in their ways, new things were harder for them to use.

He hadn’t used any skills, perhaps forgetting that he even had them. My Mask was my advantage, my trump card.

I had learned the lesson from the emperor beast, I wasn’t going to sit and wait to see what kind of a trump Zhang had, I wasn’t going to give him the chance to use any of it.

[Quick Swap Slot—Slash>Debilitating Wave]

I lost my combat trait bonus, but it wasn’t doing much for me here anyway.

[Debilitating Wave] blasted out of me, hitting the charging shifter head on. He faltered, fell to his knees and caught himself on the ground with his arms.

I placed a hand over my chest and pulled. My Mask manifested, and I placed it over my face, then charged in. I raised a hand and swung down with my fist and [Pulverizing Smash]. I hit him across the back, heard bones break as he slammed against the ground and bounced off. My other hand came down, stabbing with my dagger and [Triple Thrust].

He managed to move out of the way somehow, just enough that my stabs caught him across the shoulder blade instead his spine. He let himself fall and rolled, an arm lashing out and grabbing my legs, pulling me down before jumping at me, clawing across my thighs and rending flesh.

I screamed, as I lashed out at him, cutting up his snout with my dagger and stabbing with my clawed fingers into his eye, squishing his eyeball in between my fingers. He opened his maw and came at my face.

[Overburn Skill—Lesser Screech]

I ruptured his eardrums and made him rear back. I got my feet in between us and kicked him off, sending him flying into a tree with enough power to break the trunk and send the tree falling.

[Swap Profile]

[Mist Step]

I reformed next to him before he could recover, my dagger stabbing into the side of his head. It didn’t put him down, he wasn’t human. It dazed him however, enough that I managed to get three good punched at his snout, cracking the bone and disfiguring him, before he retaliated.

A massive fist punched through my stomach and out my back. The pain was agonizing, but my anger drowned everything out. I pulled my dagger out of his head and stabbed into his arm, between bones then twisted shattering them and with a knee on his torso pushed myself off, tearing his arm apart, leaving his forearm and hand in my stomach.

He was healing, not as fast as I was, but faster than I expected. Bones of his snout cracked and shifted in place; a new eye grew in an empty socket.

I had to end it.

[Blood Gout]

He retched as blood poured out of his wounds, out of his mouth from internal ones too, and into my waiting mouth. My jaw dislodged, my Mask split open, and a monstrous maw gulped down all of the shifters blood. It was the most powerful blood I have ever tasted.

More than any of the beasts on Ish Vimza, more even than Shadow’s blood. It was greater in a different way, this was not highly Invested blood, I could tell. But it was filled with the thirst, with the bacterium that turned me, that made me who I was.

The sensation threw me for a loop, so much so that I didn’t realize that Zhang had moved. He came at me, his body blurring faster than he had ever moved before, a charge skill of some kind.

He slammed into me with enough speed to blast all air out of my lungs, to crack my ribs. He picked me up then slammed me against the ground, stunning me.

He opened his jaw and snapped down to bite my head off, and there was nothing that I could do to stop him. A spike of stone blasted out from next to my head, piercing the inside of his mouth.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

It bought me enough time. With a roar I grabbed hold of him and rolled him off me, then came up on top of him, straddling him.

He tried to pull out the broken stone spike out of his mouth with his one remaining arm, but I didn’t give him a chance.

I reigned down strikes against his head, cracking bones and caved in his skull, then I stabbed my red tipped fingers straight into his mouth. My nails looked more like claws as they pierced through the soft flesh inside. I grabbed a bone, then twisted his lower jaw clean off.

I clawed deeper, tearing his throat out, digging until I reached the spine. I crushed it in my hand, then stood, pulling the weakly twitching body with me. I grabbed the top of his snout with one hand and kept the other in the gaping hole in his throat, holding it by the collarbone. Then I pulled and tore his head clean off with a roar.

I raised the body above my head with a grunt, it was heavier than I had expected, and opened my mouth, letting blood drip down straight down my throat.

There was little thought in my mind, only the thirst singing, its voice was so clear I could almost hear something coherent. I felt myself expanding, as if my skin was too tight for me, my muscles were burning and my stomach felt like a bottomless hole.

There was a pressure in my head, and my Mask advanced again.

“No!!! Grandfather!!!”

The yell pulled me back, and I dropped the corpse aside as I saw the other shifter, now healed, changing. His bones cracked and he dropped to all four, the true shifter form.

I growled at him and got low, waiting for him.

A chime sounded, and light surrounded us just as he charged. It raised us from the ground and kept us from moving.

“NO!” Guo Li yelled. “I’ll kill you, you fucking leech!”

Before he had the chance to say anything else, the world vanished, and I was in the now familiar gray expanse. I took a few deep breaths, calming down, and found that I couldn’t. My mind was whirling, my stomach was burning a hole in my body, and everything felt heavy. I didn’t know what was happening.

I closed my eyes and chanted out loud. I didn’t need to calm down, I needed to take ride the wave, to guide.

“Ambition… is the drive to achieve Greatness. Emotion is the fuel that grants me Purpose. Calm is the surrender to the will of Others. Control is the shackle that robs me of Ambition,” I felt whatever it was that happened to me subside, though I still felt like I was a size too big for my body. Everything felt… tight.

“I do not conceal my Ambition, I Relish. I do not suppress my Emotion, I Embrace.”

And embrace I did. I took the victory, the thrill of the fight. The knowledge that I had bested someone strong. Guo Zhang was a powerful shifter, and old, far older than shifters were supposed to get. His blood was… its taste rivaled that of my sire. And that spoke to his power more than anything.

I had no doubt now that he had done as he had said. That he had killed Elder Vampires before.

I shook my head and tried to stand, but instead of standing I toppled to the ground, a groan escaping me unbidden.

I rolled and looked down. Right, I still had Zhang’s arm stuck in my stomach. I pulled it out and stifled a cry. My chest felt like it was pulverized, and that was not even counting the agony of my body healing. Zhang’s blood was accelerating it, but he had done so much damage that it was taking a while.

I was a wreck. I raised my head and saw a pedestal along with a chest nearby. The trial had ended, which was fortunate. I don’t know if I could’ve handled Guo Li in my state, and Dubois had probably recovered from my strike too.

Aurora had saved my life with her stone spike. I would need to thank her properly later. I hobbled over to the pedestal and read what it said on the plaque.

Congratulations for finishing the Trial of the Forest!

You’ve finished at the 1st spot and were rewarded 60,000 points. You will be transported back to the Trial entrance after collecting your reward.

I nodded, killing the Suul, two kings, an emperor, and Zhang had given me enough points to finish first. I only hoped that the others were alright. Saia’s drone wasn’t with me, which was… I glanced down and realized that I wasn’t wearing the tunic that she made. She had to have slipped during battle. My instructions were to protect Jiyun, she would’ve done that. If she needed more mass then she would’ve left me undefended, I was more durable than she her skinsuit was. Well, Saia was always with me, she was inside of me, she just couldn’t communicate without extra outside mass.

I hoped that the Grand Spell didn’t just leave her mass in the trial, that would be a pain to recover.

I walked over to the large silver chest and opened it up to see my rewards.

“Damn, no shirt?” I raised my head and glared at the gray mist that surrounded me. “You couldn’t help a girl out huh?”

There was no response from the Grand Spell, not that I expected one. I shook my head and turned my attention back to the rewards.

The first thing I grabbed was a pouch filled with gemstones, as had become standard reward. I glanced inside and saw that there were two dozen of the stones, most E grade, and a handful D grade gemstones. I put them aside, and checked the second pouch, this one filled with gold coins.

I really had to figure out what to do with all the coins I was getting. Earth didn’t really have an economy right now; money was worthless, and we would probably be surviving on a barter system for a while… it occurred to me then that once the portals open and the factions from the rest of Kirios arrive they might actually want them.

“Huh,” I shook my head and continued looking through my rewards.

One of the items was a pair of boots, leather by the look of them, though very simple. I looked them over but there wasn’t anything that would suggest what they did, so I put them aside. Next was a box of ammo, smaller caliber than what I needed but still welcome, especially as I’ve just fired my last.

The third item was a golden lantern, again I had no idea what it did. I would have to wait until Saia could communicate in order to see if she could figure it out. The fourth item was a rolled-up scroll. I frowned at it, as soon as I touched it, I could feel something faint within, an imprint on the Way, only not quite like a skill. I didn’t mess with it anymore, just put it next to the other stuff.

The last item was a wooden cube, and as I picked it up, I noticed that it had a paper tag attached to it. I blinked, then turned it over and realized that it had writing on it.

Simple Wooden Cabin

Press the lever on top and place in an open space to manifest a Simple Wooden Cabin, 50 square meters in rectangular size. Once placed, the cabin can’t be moved.

“The fuck,” I raised an eyebrow. Then glanced at the gray mist all around me. “If you could always put tags on items, why not do it for everything?”

The Grand Spell, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer.

“Unless you don’t want to mess with people who’ve made identifying such objects their life’s work,” I thought out-loud. The Grand Spell was clearly learning, adapting on the go. According to Shadow, it was always introducing new stuff with every Expansion Interval. This time it had obviously taken inspiration from Earth’s fiction. But it also had to juggle a lot of things that it had already put in place before.

The more I learned, the more amazed I became at what an achievement the Grand Spell was. I knew that its creator made it as a way to prepare and fight against the threat he saw beyond Kirios, and though I didn’t yet understand how, I was sure that the Grand Spell was working toward that goal.

I took the cube, and as it was the last item I prepared to be transported out as the plaque said. I gathered all the items and soon enough I felt the familiar sensation of being transported.

I arrived back in the forest next to the registration pedestal. Immediately I noticed the others. They were gathered around Saia, or rather her drone, who upon my arrival immediately turned her head to look at me.

“Look! She moved her head!” Aurora jumped up excitedly. “That means Marianna is fine!”

I blinked, then quickly realized what was happening. The drone had probably been inactive, since it didn’t have the connection to Saia’s main body within me.

“Of course I’m fine,” I said. The others were all there, the four humans, Jason, Mark, Matt, and Diana, sat at an improvised camp. Daehyun sat next to Jiyun as Khalil tended her wounds, his hand glowing with a yellow light.

Aurora whirled around and rushed to give me a hug.

“Mari!” She tried to squeeze me but failed miserably. “You’re alright? You were pretty banged up in there.”

“Healed, all better now, see,” I pointed down, which prompted her to do the same.

We both realized it at the same time.

“I’m glad that you’re good Marianna,” Khalil said as he started walking toward me.

“Stop!” Aurora yelled.

Khalil froze. “What’s wrong?”

I rolled my eyes as Aurora stepped closer in front of me, blocking Khalil’s sight of my topless chest. “Saia, could you give me some clothes please?”

The dragon trotted over and a small piece of her detached and flowed over my body, creating a skintight makeshift tunic.

“You know,” Aurora started. “That isn’t that much better.”

I chuckled and stepped aside. I walked over to Jiyun and knelt next to her.

“How are you?” I asked.

“My ribs are bruised, but I’m doing better, Khalil and your ring are helping. I should be able to walk by tonight.”

“Good, you did great,” I turned to look at Aurora. “You both did.”

They smiled at me. “I finished first,” I told them.

“That’s great,” Aurora clapped her hands then gestured at Jiyun. “The two of us had the same amount of points, so we shared third.”

I blinked. “Great. And I see that Saia was transported with you two?”

Jiyun nodded. “She was next to us when the trail ended, so we grabbed her, we didn’t know if the Grand Spell would transport her with you. Though she stopped moving once we were getting our rewards. Also,” she shifted and reached behind her to pull something forward. “We managed to grab this too.”

I nearly squealed in joy but managed to control myself. I had an image to keep. I reached forward and picked up my serpent-tongue spear.

I had already made peace with the loss, but now I felt an immense relief.

“Thank you, it was a gift, and it means a lot to me.”

“We noticed,” Aurora added over my shoulder.

“Okay,” I took a deep breath and looked around at everyone. “Let’s debrief, there is a lot to say.”

Everyone gathered around the fire, and Aurora, Jiyun and I started recounting the events of the trial.