Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Third, emerge victorious

Lessened Bleed (Common)

Tier: Bronze

Level: 1

You are capable of keeping your blood where it belongs. For fifteen minutes every hour on a rolling basis, you bleed at a 75% reduced rate.

Shape Blood (Uncommon)

Tier: Bronze

Level: 1

Your understanding of life is such that you can manipulate it. For six minutes every hour on a rolling basis, you gain control over up to a gallon of blood that is not currently in another’s body at a range of 10 feet.

Shape Self (Uncommon)

Tier: Bronze

Level: 1

You wield control over yourself, guided by your power over blood. Use this skill to change your body. Changes made are permanent. Can be used up to 1 time per day.

I discard Lessened Bleed immediately and select the other two. There’s a couple of reasons for it, but I’m already rolling away from the freshly-devoured demon baby as I enumerate them. I acted off instinct, and only now is the logic catching up.

First, it’s a Common skill while the other two are higher rarity. That means it’s less likely to have secret effects as I level up. I think. My instilled knowledge says that, but it’s murky.

First, Lessened Bleed is purely defensive. I need something to hit my enemies, not a skill that’ll just keep me alive for a few seconds longer before I get my head taken off.

Speaking of enemies, EV10 takes another step closer to me. It hasn’t noticed that I’ve leveled up. It still doesn’t know it’s about to need to take this seriously.

Good. That gives me a precious few seconds to examine what I have access to. I tug on a new sensation in my mind, a disquieting tremor that I didn’t even notice was there.

Name: EV3

Age: 0

Race: ???

Class: Blood Foundling

Level: 1

XP: 1/100

Kill Count: 4

Traits:

Demonic Heritage

Enhanced Blood Affinity

Magic Affinities:

General - 1

Blood - 1

Skills:

Appraise (Bronze) - lvl 1

Devour (Bronze) - lvl 1

Pain Resistance (Silver) - lvl 13

Shape Self (Bronze) - lvl 1

Shape Blood (Bronze) - lvl 1

Attributes:

Magic (Power) - 1

Magic (Regen) - 1

Magic (Meta) - 1

Body (Speed) - 5

Body (Strength) - 5

Body (Durability) - 5

Mind (Speed) - 9

Mind (Resistance) - 5

Information floods my mind, and the brief second of disorientation it causes me gives EV10 enough time to close the distance between us.

I can’t think right now. Only act.

EV10 manifests its blade in one hand, its too-long face stretching into a crooked smile, and it slices downwards.

Time seems to slow down as the coppery sword swings down towards me, and perhaps it actually does. That Mind (Speed) attribute being so high surely contributes to this.

I throw myself to the floor as well as I can with a bad arm—but as I do, I realize that I no longer actually have an injured arm.

Leveling up healed me.

I file the information away for later. For now, I must survive.

My body hits the ground hard, my vision jarring as my jaw slams into the tiled floor, but I avoid the worst of the strike. It’s not the cleanest swing, I note—just an application of raw force to a sword. On some level, it disappoints me that my enemy is so weak. On another, I feel satisfied knowing I have a chance to beat it.

First, I need a weapon of my own. When EV10 was fighting the blob, the two of them remained at an impasse, presumably because their Shape Blood skills were conflicting with each other.

Actually, it might not even have Shape Blood. It seems awfully limited in what it can do, at least.

Either that, or it’s just not very creative.

EV10’s eyes narrow, the lopsided smile fading away from its face as it realizes I’m not the helpless victim it thought I was.

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Well. There goes any chance for a full surprise. At least I got away with my body intact.

I draw on Shape Blood, and the entire world lights up to a sense that’s not quite sight. I can still see normally, but there’s a second layer to it, as if the fresh bloodstains coating the floor are calling out to me, shining brighter even when I close my eyes.

I have six minutes, but this fight isn’t going to last that long.

First, I focus on the glimmering edge that is EV10’s makeshift sword. It hasn’t advanced towards me, probably wary of whatever tricks I might be hiding up my sleeves.

Unfortunately, it remains just as capable with its own skill. It hasn’t been a single minute since it killed the blob, so if its skill works anywhere similar to mine, it’s still got plenty of time left.

I try to tug on the blood-blade in its hand, but I feel a will resisting mine, shoving my magic away from it. My opponent’s version of Shape Blood is stronger than mine, though I’m at least able to prevent it from extending its blade more.

Which is nice and all, but EV10 still has a sword. It’s not good at using it, but it is armed.

There’s a solid five feet between us, but I’m still on the ground. I roll backwards, getting to my feet, and EV10 uses that opening to dash towards me, raising its blade.

Once again, it’s a sloppy strike, but I’m midway through my roll and can’t easily change direction. Instead, I raise my left arm. Compared to my head, a limb is practically disposable.

The blade bites into my raised arm, hitting it at an odd angle, but I don’t even bother dealing with the sensations that brings.

Pain Resistance advanced to level 14!

You now suffer 40% less pain at all times.

Convenient. Only 40%? I suppose it doesn’t matter. I set the pain aside either way. It’s unnecessary.

My Shape Blood isn’t powerful enough to overpower EV10’s, but I can fix that. I have, after all, just leveled up.

I put two of my three stat points into the Power aspect of my Magic stat, and my skills instantly feel easier to use. The brightness calls to me as EV10 takes its blade out, and I don’t bother attempting to use its own weapon against it.

Instead, I use the blood pouring out of my redamaged arm, activating Shape Blood even as crimson fluid pumps out of my veins, crystallizing it into a ridge of jagged sharped spikes protruding from my otherwise useless left arm.

In the same moment, I act off inexplicable instinct and use Shape Self. As it’s still Bronze-tier and only level 1, it’s not that powerful—I can’t grow extra limbs or anything useful like that, and it’s only usable once per day.

I can, however, change my unwieldy demon-arm into something a little smoother. Faster. More human.

Human won’t always the most optimal form, but I’m drawn to it for some reason. Here, it probably is. I can feel my musculature shift, sense the slight shifts of my body as my arm changes shape, becoming a better-proportioned limb with finer dexterity than the misshapen elongated claw-arm I had before.

I punch forward, and my strike is significantly cleaner than anything EV10 can manage. It tries to block, but its strength lies in, well, strength, not finesse. It tries to Shape Blood and disrupt the blood on my arm, but I fight back with my own. I can’t add more to the makeshift blades on my arm, but it won’t dissipate, either.

I draw blood, and I don’t stop. I hit it again, gashing it with the spiked blood-growths, and it flails out blindly. I take another hit, this time to the shoulder, and I bleed too. Each blow I graze it with is returned to me twofold, but I will not fall until my body fails me.

EV10 clearly doesn’t have any where near my level of disdain towards pain. It screeches as I continue forward methodically, and it tries to protect itself. I don’t care if I get hit. I just need to take this demon down.

After I get another solid hit in, it wails in despair and holds both hands over its head. It’s a pitiful sight. Is it trying to surrender? Block?

Well, whatever that gesture is, EV10 can’t do it anymore after I bite its face off.

Devour granted +23 XP!

Targets devoured: [5/7]

That’s a fair sight better than the other ones. I’m not terribly surprised. EV10 was the highest level by far.

Still, I frown. Devour states that it takes 30 percent of the XP from what I use it on. If it takes 50 XP to reach level 1 and 100 to reach level 2, shouldn’t I have received more?

There’s nuance to this skill, I deduce. Either that, or not everyone has the same requirements to level up. There’s any number of possibilities.

In the meantime, I will hunt.

When I scan the room, though, I don’t see another living soul in here with me. I try using Appraise a few times, searching for another presence, but that doesn’t work either.

Whoever else is still here is either hiding so well that I can’t see them at first glance, or they’ve escaped.

I think it’s the latter. It’s a little hard to tell the exact tracks that each demon’s left with how messy the blood trails have gotten, but I can clearly see some of them trailing away from the central mess where we all started. We were, after all, all submerged in blood. None of us really came out of that squeaky clean.

I could stay here and try to find a way to break the tubes open, but that runs the risk of the others running away and escaping. I haven’t seen a single other living being aside from us demon-babies, and this place has been left alone for a wild. I doubt that anything will disrupt it while I’m gone, but every extra moment I spend here is a moment my targets have to run away.

I draw lightly on Shape Blood for a couple seconds, using it to identify the areas where blood trails off away from the growing puddles around the tubes. My first attempt leads nowhere, as the trail leads straight to an already-dead demon.

Well, nobody seems to have eaten it. Their loss.

Devour granted +2 XP!

Huh. Maybe the number is lower because it’s been dead longer? Either that or this one just barely got XP before it died.

Either way, it’s XP. The quest doesn’t update, but that’s not surprising. They’re already dead.

As soon as I’m done gathering it, I follow another set of bloody footsteps. They lead through a labyrinth of countertops and dried-out test tubes. The frenetic way they swing back and forth, dashing between table and tube—this one must’ve been panicked.

For a second, I worry that I’ll need to waste time breaking the tubes open. They could be anywhere from me now, and EV10 managed to make me bleed pretty heavily.

That’s when I realize that my wounds are slowly closing. I’m still leaking blood like a deflating water balloon, but flesh is slowly knitting itself back together. I sort my way through my stat sheet until I find the right entry. As it turns out, it’s a trait.

Demonic Heritage

Requirements: Be born with the blood of demons.

You naturally heal when not in combat. Vulnerability to radiant attacks.

That is… incredibly useful. The vulnerability is unfortunate, but being able to heal is excellent. I won’t have to waste time trying to level up to heal myself in between battles.

I have to assume the rest of them have the same trait. When I get to them, they’ll be at full health.

I flex my skills once more, feeling out my new arm as I do so. It’s a little odd to have a single part-human arm while the other one is still long and unwieldy like everyone else’s, but I’ll be able to fix that with time and Shape Self. For some reason, the human form draws me, and the human-ish arm feels way more natural than the demon body.

This, plus the inexplicable instincts and all the familiarity with the skills I have… I think it’s fair to assume that this body has had memories implanted into it.

It just frustrates me that I can’t remember anything personal.

For now, though, I have babies to eat.

The steps trail off into the distance, and I follow. I haven’t gotten an update to the objective yet, which means they’re both still alive.

They go off in different directions—one to the far left, one to the far right. The lab is practically empty but for the still-wet trails they left behind. I didn’t notice earlier, but this part of the lab is darker. I make my way through, my eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light, and I make out the form of four doors.

The leftmost and rightmost ones are open, both of them leading to steel corridors that must’ve been sterile before the others tracked blood all over them.

I head left.

Time to see what else this place has to offer.

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