Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Fourth, track down your victims

Disconcertingly, there is still some lighting in the corridor. Earlier, there was illumination through the glow of the machines that kept us in the tubes, which was odd enough on its own, but functional lighting here? That screams to me that this place is inhabited.

To be fair, they flicker. They’re off more than they’re on, proving that whatever technology or magic powers them, it’s degrading.

I come to the first intersection less than two minutes after I leave. Thankfully, there’s a layer of dust on the floor, and I can follow the trail where its been disrupted.

Also, the blood trail helps. It’s starting to fade—the one that went this way likely dried off with time—but there’s still enough bloody footsteps for me to follow.

The corridors themselves are odd. Despite the inconsistent lighting, everything feels oddly pristine. The walls and floor are dull metal, and there are rectangular doors set into them at regular intervals. I burn with curiosity to check some of them out—I still don’t know why I’m here, nor do I know why I have so much knowledge loaded into my brain—but again, if nothing’s disturbed this area for long enough that dust has formed, nothing is likely to prevent me from going back and exploring more later.

I do fully intend on going back to the lab. There’s a lot of XP-rich blood there, and it’d be a shame to let it sit there unused.

In the meantime, I continue sprinting.

As I run, I try using Devour on the blood trails, but there’s not enough material there to gain anything. Shame.

I’m glad there’s a trail. There’s nothing to differentiate one corridor from another, though there are a couple points where I see paths end in rooms that look like smaller versions of the lab I left.

I do catch a glimpse of an open door here and there. None of the rooms seem to be populated, but it also doesn’t look like people were beating a hasty retreat. Just like the lab, there’s other rooms with weapons, equipment, and other experiments that have been neatly organized to stagnate and wither away.

I’m getting a clearer picture of the facility I’m within. It’s obviously something for scientific research, but why is it so empty? And why are we the only living things here?

Well, “we” is only three babies now, and I fully intend to reduce that to “I”.

As I round another corner, my ears prick. Off in the distance, I can hear footsteps, and they’re much slower than mine.

I speed up. At a guess, that thing’s Body (Speed) attribute is significantly lower than mine. That helps me quite a bit.

I’m not even breathing hard when I catch up to it.

One more right turn and it’s within my sight. It’s a hundred feet further down the corridor, but I push an Appraise towards it anyway.

EV1

Age: 0

Race: ???

Class: Bloodspawn

Level: 0

A smile splits my lips. As I expected, it’s weak.

And that means I can experiment.

I used Shape Blood for maybe two minutes earlier. That gives me plenty of time to use it right now.

Closing the distance is easy. This one is insectoid just like many of the others, but its legs are malformed and its level is 0. Its arms are stronger in exchange, but it looks like it made the mistake of not absorbing all the XP it could.

It is, however, still tracking blood on the floor. So am I. All of us were. It’s hard not to when our bodies were submerged in it not fifteen minutes ago.

A single exertion of will turns my skill on once more, and I’m pleased to see that the blood coating its skin lights up to my senses.

There are a number of things I want to try. EV10 just created a sword to hit things with, but I’m far more creative than that.

I reach out, and I decide to turn the blood on its skin into a spike.

It doesn’t work. Figures. With no leverage, it’s hard to create a spear when there’s no separation between the blood I’m creating and the skin.

Instead, I move as much of the blood coating it away from its body as I can. Much of it has dried or fallen off already, so I’m able to control the majority of it with my gallon capacity. For a moment, it looks like it has a crimson shadow encasing it, half again its size, and then I start acting.

I close my eyes and fold blood over on itself, manipulating them until I create an almost-hollow spike maybe six inches long. I’m surprised how much effort it takes—where controlling the entire mass is simple, this one takes all my active attention to keep it running. I have enough material to make six of them.

While I have them going, hovering in a loose circle around the slowly-crawling demon, my body freezes up. The entirety of my mind is focused on managing them, keeping them manifested in a way that makes their tips sharp.

Shape Blood advanced to level 2!

You can now control 2 gallons of blood, and your time increases to twelve minutes per hour.

And I send them flying into my enemy.

My spears pierce EV1, and then my control gets murky. Once the points of the spikes break skin, blood spurts out from its body, and I find that it’s getting harder to determine which blood has the luster that indicates I can control it and which can’t.

Not that it really matters. I gain more arterial blood to add to my control as fast as I lose control over the edges that have penetrated already.

EV1 shrieks, and it starts crawling away faster.

I don’t bother prolonging its suffering. I could try to get more levels out of Shape Blood, but it’s a little easier now that I’ve leveled it up. I doubt I’m going to get much more out of this.

Ending its life is more of a mercy than anything else.

Devour granted +3 XP!

Targets devoured: [6/7]

Only 3 XP. It makes sense. It must not have gotten very far.

I turn around immediately, stretching my unwieldy body to its limits.

Thankfully, the blood trail hasn’t dried enough for me to lose it. Going back is simple.

I can’t let the other one escape. This whole time, I haven’t seen any way to go up and down through this lab, but then again I’ve only been following EV1. There’s almost certainly a way to get out.

And there’s even odds that the last demon-baby has found that already.

I up the pace. If it’s anything like EV1, then it won’t have gotten too far. It took me less than ten minutes to find EV1, and it takes even fewer to get back.

That is, of course, in part due to me putting the last available stat point I have into Body (Speed). It’s not instantly noticeable, but after a few minutes, I realize that each step I’m taking is longer even though the timing of each one hasn’t changed at all.

With a bit of extra time, I can afford to stop a couple of times. I don’t look through all the shelves in every open room, of course, but I do recall seeing an armory-adjacent room. I look into it for a moment—it’s smaller than I thought it was, more of a closet than a proper weapons room.

Most of the weapons in here are too large for me. I’m not very large, though I do plan on changing that.

Shape Self is only usable once per day, though, so it’s going to be a while.

In the meantime, I take two daggers, each of them a solid six inches long. Compared to my body, they may as well be swords.

It’s much easier to wield the knife in my human left arm. I discard the one in my right hand.

Then I keep going. I can come back and look over it more later. Nothing else in there is usable to me—every rifle looks heavy-duty, and they’re nearly half the size of my body. I won’t be able to control them.

With a knife in one hand and naught but claws in the other, I arrive back in the lab.

The final baby is already there, and it’s big.

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I stop myself from making a sound, hidden in the shadows as I am.

It’s over double my size. At least six feet tall, at a guess, though I’m too far from it to completely accurately tell.

Five of the eleven tubes are shattered, and my final enemy is drenched in blood.

The tubes aren’t nearly as full as they were before.

It took the XP.

Even from this distance, Appraise still functions.

Name: EV11

Age: 0

Race: ???

Class: Bloodspawn

Level: 4

It’s three levels higher than me.

EV11 wasn’t running away because it was scared.

It was running away because it was buying time. Once everyone else was gone, it came here.

And now, it’s feasting.

I start inching my way forward, clutching my knife.

It might be three levels higher than me, but we all still bleed.

If I can catch it unawares, I might be able to kill it.

I take one more step forward, and then it turns its head ninety degrees. Not quite enough to see me, I think, but it’s a precarious thing. I freeze, slowing my breathing.

“One more,” it grumbles to itself, its voice grating and sharp. “To completion.”

It has the same quest.

It manifests a sword taller than I am in each hand and slams them into a tube, cracking the glass.

I can’t beat this. Not now.

“I must feed,” it rumbles, still absorbing the blood flowing forth from the tubes. “I will find you.”

If there’s any doubt in my mind that it knows I’m here, it’s banished immediately when I see it start sweeping the room with its eyes.

I’m back in the darkness by this point, so I run, taking off in the same direction I went before.

As I do, pressure pushes down on me, emanating from the center of the room. A quick glance reveals that EV11 is glowing bright red, the blood on top of it shining with some power I don’t recognize.

A new skill.

It shoots it towards me, but I’m already gone, my legs pumping as fast as they can to carry me down a corridor.

I get the vague sensation that I should be panicked. That’s an unnecessary feeling, though, so I banish the thought.

EV11 isn’t following me. Then again, it doesn’t really need to, does it? Unlike many of the others, it’s smart. It actually had a plan to level itself up, and now it’s strong. At this point, if it has the same quest, it should know that the only other one of its kind still alive—me—is desperate to level up.

85 XP isn’t that much, assuming the amount of XP required to level up increases with every level, but it’s significant. Larger than anything else I can get short of consuming EV11.

I need to get stronger, and I’m sure that this lab complex can help me. There are a ton of rooms that I haven’t even started exploring, and with the complex as pristine as it is, I’m certain there’s something that I can use.

If not, I’ll figure out another way. I’ll train new skills from the ground up if I have to.

Five minutes pass before I find a promising lead, and as I enter a corridor full of open doors that I haven’t seen before, something changes.

Targets devoured: [6/6]

Warning: XP reward reduced from 85 to 80.

What? The objective just changed. Did EV11 kill itself somehow?

Objective: First, eat the other babies [COMPLETE]

You have slain the others.

80 XP rewarded!

 

You have advanced to level 2!

You have gained 3 stat points.

Due to Enhanced Blood Affinity and your actions, you may select 2 Bronze-tier skills to gain from the following list:

Lessened Bleed

Enhance Bleed

Lesser Vampirism

Knifefighting

Venomous Bite

That's not all.

There's a new quest waiting for me.

Objective: Second, slay your adversary

There is one enemy remaining, though a baby it remains no longer. Devour it.

Targets devoured: [0/1]

Reward: 250 XP

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