1% Lifesteal

Bad things had no tendency to happen in any real pattern. Be it tragedy or mere inconvenience, nothing prevented life from randomly beating the shit out of someone in quick succession.

This had birthed a saying a long time ago. "When it rains, it pours, huh?" Shawn thought out loud as he sighed.

He was sitting at a small cafe close to the only passage in Repentawa and sipping on a coffee.

Last night, their spies had finally confirmed that the man who went by "Slave" in the dungeon had officially joined Valhalla as a full-blown member.

He still remembered his run-in with the guy, back at the dungeon. Insane physical striking power combined with the apparent ability to not only endure extreme stress to his body but also the power to rapidly recover from severe backlash. A true dark star had appeared. And it had joined the side of the enemy.

Truly—when it rained, it poured.

Indeed, bad things had no tendency to appear in any order.

But when they happened so closely together, it was inevitable to suspect that they might be connected somehow. His brother's death and the man's sudden appearance had happened a mere two days apart. They didn't have to be connected, of course.

But they could be.

This didn't necessarily mean that the man was directly responsible for his brother's death. In Shawn's opinion, the odds of that were incredibly low. But for some reason, his intuition kept telling him that there absolutely had to be something tying the two together. As for what it was, he would find out in due time.

Once finished with the coffee, he got up and headed into a delve.

As far as easy ways to get money were concerned, the fortress dungeon was truly an excellent location. He didn't always qualify for a weapon drop, but a massive bag of silver coins was still very much worth the effort. Besides, it only took six hours, and the realm was rich with ether, making it a solid place for gathering.

His steps took him through the bustling streets. It was a cold morning, with light snow trickling from above. The market right outside the passage was as busy as ever, with shouting matches between sellers and buyers, piles of monster corpses sitting out in the open, and a number of injured waiting for their turn with the healers.

With so much stuff happening around him, he completely failed to notice the armored man who was following closely behind him.

***

Freddy had subdued his star completely, making himself blend right into the mass of people. Well, as much as a massive, armored man wearing the world's edgiest trenchcoat could fit in, at least.

But anyone below halfway up the second star had no chance of telling his exact gathering without a special method.

And the person he followed appeared to not even notice he was there.

Around fifty meters ahead of him walked Shawn Gem—the brother of Jason Gem.

He was wearing full dark leather armor with a reinforced and inscribed helmet, as well as a regular enchanted vest.

Both the enchantments were protecting weak points.

Shawn Gem was a scion of Gem & Faller. From what Thor had told him last night, Freddy knew that they were among the worst when it came to exploitation. For this man to be so far into the second star, there was no way he had done so without participating in his "family business." And indeed, from what Freddy knew of the man in the few articles he had seen about him, the man was considered an important figure in his family.

Freddy's fists clenched as he remembered last night's events.

Nobody in this city was in the business of kidnapping people randomly off the streets. That happened very rarely, and it was one of the few things that the adjudicators of the Northern Belt stepped in to deal with.

But those people who had been damaged past the point of ever being capable of living a normal life again had made it into the clutches of Strata somehow.

Freddy remembered Lucas's situation. His mother had racked up an insane debt they couldn't even dream of paying.

Had Freddy not stepped in, it was very likely that either Lucas or his mother would have been among those people found in that basement.

And the bastard in front of him was in the business of pushing people into such situations.

With a deep breath, he calmed himself and refocused. If his emotions got out of hand, his aura would leak.

Shawn stepped into the passage. After waiting a bit to ensure that nobody realized he was following the man, Freddy followed.

It very quickly became obvious where the man was going.

The path to the Fortress Dungeon wasn't long. Freddy only had a brief window of opportunity to act. He made sure to take a good look around himself. There were plenty of people in the first realm. But from what he could tell, nobody was going the same way as Shawn.

As soon as he saw Shawn step into the second passage, Freddy moved a bit away from the people and called his companion's name. "Bloodshed."

The skeleton had already been informed of what it had to do. Without a word, it sank into the Netherecho and ran forward. Freddy kept following Shawn.

"I have checked your surroundings, Master," Bloodshed said. "There is nobody following you. There is also currently nobody on the path towards the Fortress other than that man."

"Good."

Freddy's steps hastened, and he slowly started catching up with the man. He entered the second passage and spotted him.

There was nothing but a short stretch of wasteland between them. The borders of the realm they were in could be seen in the distance, with not a single soul present and without a single person coming their way. In that brief moment, the two of them were alone.

At this point, he was no longer hiding his aura, and the man noticed him immediately.

Shawn turned around. The man looked apprehensive momentarily, but then Freddy raised an arm to wave and broke into a quick jog. "Hey!" he called the man.

Shawn eased his guard slightly. "Hello!" he greeted back. "You're that guy I met in the fortress last week!"

"Yeah, that's me!" Freddy said as he slowed down and stopped right next to the man. "You're headed for the Fortress Dungeon, right?"

The man nodded.

"Mind if I come along?"

"Sure, not a problem…" the man said with a hint of reluctance and a dash of curiosity.

"By the way, I forgot to thank you last time," Freddy said. "Without your Unholy Blessing, things could have gone very badly. Also, I don't think I introduced myself." He stretched out his hand. "My name is Freddy."

"Nice to meet you, Freddy," Shawn said with an awkward chuckle as he accepted the handshake. "I'm Shawn."

"Well, Shawn, It was nice knowing you." Suddenly, both the stars in Freddy's soul ignited, clenching Shawn's hand in a Hydraulic Flex-powered vice grip that crushed bone.

The man groaned through gritted teeth and tried pulling back, but it was too late.

Holding the man's arm with his right hand, he pulled him in as his second hand clenched into a fist. Gore Knuckles grew out and flew forward with the might of a double-star Flowing Strike.

Shawn quickly reacted and conjured a cushion of darkness, but while it did absorb a good deal of energy and slightly disrupted the timing of Flowing Strike, Freddy's blow couldn't be stopped; the spikes tore through the shield and hit the man's helmet. The enchantment activated, just barely blocking the rest of the force. The blow pushed Shawn's head back as the Gore Knuckles broke apart, crumbling into small bits.

The man shouted, but before he could reorient himself, Freddy conjured a javelin of blood and, with a Hydraulic Flex, stabbed right into the helmet. The enchantment was empty. There was no shield to block the strike. With a loud sound of metal colliding, the point of Freddy's javelin sank into the helmet right through the visor, pushing into the man's brain and killing him instantly.

"People are headed this way, Master," Bloodshed said. "Hurry."

"All right. You can return now, I need your help."

Freddy quickly lifted the man's body and folded it over. A moment later, the man disappeared, tucked tightly into Freddy's storage ring.

The size of a cubic meter was deceptively massive. Freddy could probably fit several whole bodies in there without much of an issue.

With a clinking sound, the man's storage ring fell to the ground. A storage item couldn't be stored inside another storage item, thus it had simply remained behind when the body vanished. With a swift hand, Freddy picked it up and pulled out a small box.

He had bought that box just a bit earlier. It was made of essence-insulating metal. Just in case that this ring could be tracked somehow, he decided to put it in this box, which would cut off the essence and prevent tracking.

After stashing the box in his pocket, he raised his hand and activated Blood Absorption. He quickly collected all of the man's blood to eliminate the evidence, and a moment later, Bloodshed arrived. With its help, he also collected any of the remaining fragments of Gore Knuckles.

Just as the spirit returned to his soul, a small group of delvers entered the realm from the other side.

Acting as if absolutely nothing had happened, Freddy walked right past them and went into the realm where the Fortress Dungeon was waiting.

No witnesses. No evidence.

All he needed now was an alibi.

Within minutes, he was at the Fortress Dungeon. People spotted him there. Once they finished waiting for the dungeon to open, they went inside.

Freddy participated in the dungeon just like anyone else. He practiced his throwing skills and racked up his contribution.

It didn't take long to bring Blood Javelin to the peak of stage 0 and get it ready for an upgrade. As for the concept he would use, he needed to find a vestige of aerodynamics. This would make the javelins ignore most of the air resistance.

This was the best choice for the first upgrade. Due to the low mass of the projectiles, they lacked impact strength and suffered from energy loss due to air resistance. Not only did they quickly lose energy, but their trajectory was also affected by wind. After the upgrade, both effects would be reduced to a minimum.

For the rest of the dungeon run, he mostly focused on developing Accelerate Blood Projectile. He didn't need javelins for this one—any blood projectile would do. Thus, he resorted to making small pebble-sized chunks of blood and throwing them for practice.

Accelerate Blood Projectile was more difficult to develop than Blood Javelin but much easier than Hydraulic Throw. Freddy had also already been working on it for a while. Thus, it came as no surprise that he finally managed to complete both the concepts and crystallize the shell.

The way the ability worked was quite simple. He imbued a chunk of hardened blood with blood essence, then consumed that essence instantly to accelerate the projectile. There was no need to determine direction or anything—the projectile would simply go faster in the same direction it was already going.

The trickiest part with Accelerate Blood Projectile was timing. As soon as the blood left his touch, manipulating it became much, much harder. Thus, he had to use the ability while he was still touching the projectile. Even after finishing Hydraulic Flex, he would need to practice to seamlessly unite the two abilities.

Speaking of Hydraulic Flex, he was still stuck. "Precise direction" was a pretty damn tough concept to practice. No matter how much he practiced, he didn't feel himself getting any closer to finishing the shell. If anything, he almost felt like he was getting worse at aiming the harder he tried.

It was becoming clear that he'd need something to help push him to the finish line.

This time around, the dungeon run went without a problem. Without any deviants messing thigns up, the fortress could endure quite a bit of damage, and with only twenty minutes on the clock, the run ended way before the army could break through.

Freddy wasn't at the top of the list this time—he had been preoccupied with abilities, putting him rather low on the list at the seventh place.

As his reward, he got a rather hefty bag of silver coins.

On his way back, he walked side by side with a few of the others who had also participated.

The bank had an outpost right outside the passage, allowing Freddy to directly deposit the coins as money. It earned him a bit over 60,000 dollars—a rather respectable sum given the effort involved.

Then, without further ado, he headed home.

"Hey Freddy, do you have a—" Lucas called as soon as Freddy stepped inside, but—

"We'll talk later; I'm busy," he said as he rushed into his room and locked the door behind him.

He focused for a while and managed to extract only the man's body. Plus the javelin that was still stuck in the man's eye. The reason why he kept the equipment inside his storage ring was simple—just in case it could be tracked somehow. As long as it didn't leave the ring, it was in a completely different dimension.

That left him with only a bloody, naked corpse.

Lying stiffly right in the middle of his bedroom.

He stared at it for a long moment and then chuckled. "Wow. Why am I laughing?" He brought a shaky hand to his forehead. "This is fucked up." He felt his legs weaken as he walked over and sat on his bed.

He felt strange. Something was deeply wrong.

"This is some real serial killer shit," he said as his voice shivered.

No.

This wasn't just "some real serial killer shit".

He had planned, stalked, and killed. This was premeditated murder—plain and simple.

His target was someone who deserved it. That was what he thought going into this.

But now that he glanced at the corpse on the ground, he wasn't so certain.

The man's hand was bloody and mangled, and the javelin was still stuck in his eye. An expression of horror and disbelief was frozen on the man's face. The man had died before he could even defend himself. In more ways than one.

Faced with the reality of what he'd done on that day, he was stunned, frozen in place. His entire body was numb. His fingers trembled. His throat tightened.

This man hadn't been a good person. But for some reason, Freddy couldn't shake off the intense feeling of guilt.

This was far from his first time taking a life. But never before had he done something like this. These weren't the actions of a hero. Nor a vigilante. Hell, his main motivation wasn't even to slay an evildoer—it was to loot said evildoer's corpse.

Take Shawn's identity out of the equation, and what was left?

Nothing but the actions of a criminal. A psychopath.

What was done was done. He shouldn't have done this. Not this way. But he couldn't undo it now.

With a vow to never do something like this again, and a knot in his throat, he got up.

The first thing he did was absorb all the blood in the man's body. Absorb Blood was thorough—not a single blood cell remained on his carpet or inside the man's body.

Then, he used the spark of undeath to eat the corpse, leaving nothing behind. With that done, he took a small red badge out of the storage ring.

This was a cheap single-use concealment badge. Upon activation, it cut off all free energy flow in a radius of one meter for roughly ten seconds. Its main use usually was to help people hide if something was trying to sniff them out. Given that it only had a single use and that it lasted such a short time, it could hardly be called a proper life-saving item, but it would do just fine for Freddy's purpose.

He pulled out the box containing Shawn's ring from his pocket and placed it on the floor right beside the badge. He also pulled out a large cloth grocery bag.

After taking a deep breath, he activated the badge and immediately opened the box, quickly pulling all the items from Shawn's ring and putting them into the bag. Then, before the ten seconds ran out, he put the ring back into the box and stored Shawn's items into his own storage ring.

The badge finally cracked, and he slumped, finally allowing himself to relax slightly.

Putting thoughts of what he did aside, he took a peek into his storage ring and looked at his haul.

***

Thor sat in his office in Valhalla, typing away on a typewriter.

The communication crystal on the table beside him suddenly lit up, and the voice of one of his men came through. He got some interesting news.

It appeared that Shawn Gem had gone missing.

His family had already launched an investigation into it.

Thor groaned. This could be horrible news. Jason Gem had died recently. His death, at least on the surface, appeared to be a freak accident involving a spirit attack. But if this was a second death in their family, the Gems would no doubt turn the whole city upside down to find answers.

As with anything bad that ever happened to them, they'd point fingers at Valhalla first. He could already see the headlines.

A creeping headache started setting in.

They really didn't need this shit—not now, not ever.

"I'm gonna pin this shit on Umbra," he muttered to himself. "It was probably them anyway."

He returned to what he was doing. Once he finished, he stretched a bit and got up to fetch himself a coffee. A strange anxiety filled him. He couldn't help but feel that something bad would happen. He was probably just being paranoid, but before heading to get his coffee, he stepped into the neighboring room just to make sure.

In a small room hidden in the corner of his office, there was a large crystal screen.

Many of his members didn't know about this, but the equipment Thor gave them had a tracking rune hidden on it. It was incredibly basic, and the information it tracked was elementary.

He could only really track two things—whether the user had killed something or… if they had died.

He had a habit of coming to this room. He often got a "bad feeling" that turned out to just be paranoia due to all the damn stress and anxiety he was under all the time.

The main flaw with this system was that it didn't work while people were in the interspace. Anything that happened inside a passage realm would only update when the item returned to New Earth, and even then, there was a distance limit of only around fifty kilometers. This was a common limitation with methods like these.

It was certainly slightly obsessive-compulsive on his part. Even if something bad did happen, it wasn't certain whether he'd even know. Still, a habit was a habit. Better this than, like, drugs.

Anyway.

Thor slowly made his way through the list of items. Whenever he selected an item, he would get a short list and the current status of the equipment's owner.

The list contained information on the targets that the user had killed most recently. It was incredibly rudimentary, only showing the approximate gathering and the affinities of the creatures that were killed.

He wasn't really paying much attention to the list—he only checked whether the people were alive.

But as he reached the trenchcoat he had given Freddy Cliff, he found himself pausing.

The man had killed a huge number of targets in relatively quick succession.

Thor scrolled up for a moment. "Oh, a dungeon run." But before he left and checked the next item, he spotted something that caught his eye, all the way at the beginning of that day's list.

140-150% gathering, dark, unholy. Killed at 10:42 a.m.

The exact gathering and affinities of Shawn Gem, at nearly the exact time the man was rumored to have gone missing.

"Holy fucking shit… That… That's not good at all."