1% Lifesteal

Freddy watched the crimson red pool on Lucas's throat. The sight of it made the world slow to a crawl. "No!" he shouted as he launched himself forward, pushing past several soldiers trying to stab him.

He picked Lucas up before he could fall to the ground and held him, checking the wound.

The cut was long and deep. It was bleeding incredibly fast. Freddy scrambled to slow the bleeding with his blood essence manipulation and used a double-star Hydraulic Flex to jump on the balcony of the central tower.

The room inside was dark and empty, without any sign of the old man who usually announced things.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Freddy shouted as he struggled to keep the blood from flowing. Manipulating other people's blood like this was incredibly difficult.

Freddy hurriedly extracted a bottle of bright red liquid out of his storage ring. It was a first-aid potion that he brought along just in case of situations like this.

He quickly poured it over the wound on Lucas's neck while using his fingers to pinch the skin shut. The potion absorbed directly into the skin, and soon after, pink, raw tissue began growing around the wound, sealing it shut and stopping the bleeding. It took the whole bottle to finally close the wound.

As he threw the bottle aside, he noticed one of the pink fibers suddenly detach and unfurl. "Shit!" he cursed.

First-aid-quality healing was effective at quickly closing wounds, but its effect didn't last long, and as the name of the quality suggested, it was only a band-aid solution.

He needed to get Lucas to a healer, and he had to hurry the fuck up.

With a growl, he rushed back to the balcony and jumped into the fray. "Get out of my way!" he shouted as he smashed a soldier's head in and whirled to face the exit. He stared at it for a long moment, tempted to try blasting it with a couple of Flowing Strikes, but he knew it wouldn't work. He could feel it from the essence fluctuations within the barrier. This wasn't something he could break by himself.

"Bloodshed! If I summoned you now, could you break this barrier?"

"I could not," the skeleton said.

"Damn it! How much blood do I have to gather!?"

"I don't know. But I would know when you gather enough."

That would have to do.

Suddenly, a spear thrust into Freddy's back. The point couldn't even break through the trenchcoat, let alone injure him. Freddy turned around, his aura billowing with an intensity that forced the soldiers back. He charged.

His fists crushed armor like paper mache.

He felt painfully slow at killing at that moment. None of the enemies could even vaguely threaten him, but that didn't mean he could simply blink and kill everyone there. He moved slower than he wanted to and his reach was limited. He wished he had a massive sword to cut through several enemies simultaneously, but he didn't.

He had to save his blood and essence. He didn't know how many soldiers he'd have to kill.

As he went berserk, he quickly discovered that the fastest way to kill the soldiers was to simply smash the top of their head with his fist. The weight and power behind the blow could crush through any block, and even if he didn't break through the helmet, the brain would be turned to mush nonetheless.

One of the soldiers he killed was carrying a war hammer with a sharp pick on one end and a blunt tip for smashing on the other. He took the hammer, and his killing speed immediately skyrocketed.

Any soldier carrying a spear was basically just a walking ammo deposit. He smashed a spear-wielding infantryman upside the head and tore his weapon out of his grasp, using it to kill an archer who was shooting at him from the battlements.

It ultimately didn't take long to finish the wave, but unfortunately, Bloodshed still hadn't told him he was done.

A distant rumbling sounded, marking the beginning of the fourth wave. "God fucking damn it!" he shouted as he jumped up to the battlements.

A sizable army of soldiers surrounded the fortress, with five generals in golden armor leading the charge.

Without hesitation, Freddy leaped down and rushed at the army.

The soldiers appeared confused, seeing nothing but a single man running towards them. But at the generals' command, the archers fired a volley, and the infantry raised their shields and spears, forming a wall.

Freddy slammed into them like a bowling ball, sending several men flying. He roared defiantly and swung the war hammer down on a soldier's head. The weapon killed the man but broke in the process. He stole another weapon and continued fighting.

He felt so, so slow. The soldiers surrounded him, keeping him at bay as they poked him with spears. They couldn't penetrate his high-quality armor, but they could slow him down, and every second he lost was a second closer to Lucas's death.

The minutes felt like they dragged on forever. Freddy could kill a soldier every few seconds, but that simply didn't feel like it was enough. The constant barrage of arrows and the slashing of swords was starting to severely damage the trenchcoat, and given that it was slowing him down, he made the choice to take it off and store it in his ring.

From what he could hear, the rest of the army started closing in on him. They weren't even bothering with the wrecked fortress. They kept trying to encircle him in a wall of shields, but he simply charged through to break out.

He didn't care about defending himself. That would only slow him down. As such, his armor accumulated damage to the point that it was beginning to fall apart. The weapons were starting to reach him, cutting into his skin and drawing blood. But as quickly as a wound appeared, it would stop bleeding and seal with a layer of pink tissue.

"What is this bastard made of!?" a soldier wailed in despair. "My lord! Please help us! We're being slaughtered!"

"Men!" a domineering voice sounded from behind the wall of soldiers. "Open the path! I shall finish him!"

The soldiers parted, letting one of the golden-armored generals through. The man was mounted on a glorious armored horse, and his equipment shone with impeccable polish. "You fiend!" The man raised a halberd at Freddy. "You will pay for—"

"Shut the fuck up!" Freddy screamed as he pulled one of the last catapult boulders from the storage ring and threw it straight at the man's chest. Before the general could react, the boulder struck, caving the man's chest in and sending him flying off the horse.

The impact on the enemy's morale was instant and devastating.

Freddy continued his onslaught, and as the ranks started to crumble, his killing speed sharply rose.

The other generals soon joined the fray to stop Freddy, but it was futile. Their gathering was roughly at around halfway through the second star. Despite talents boosting every aspect of their physical power, they were utterly helpless.

Freddy used Blood Javelin with both stars, conjuring one in each hand, and with all the focus he could muster, threw the projectiles at the generals, aiming at their heads. Every throw landed with near-perfect accuracy, breaking through their helmets and finishing them on the spot.

With the concept of aerodynamics, the javelins could fly insanely fast—dodging them was ridiculously difficult, especially for mounted army men in heavy armor.

At this point, the army was no longer using coherent tactics. Thankfully, while the soldiers could be severely demoralized, they wouldn't start endlessly running away. Their last stand didn't last long.

However, as he slowly wrapped up the wave, Freddy wasn't doing the best, either.

He was starting to feel exhausted, and the amount of reflux essence in his body was reaching critical levels. He only had 50% essence remaining in his reserves.

With Bloodshed's persisting silence, despair was starting to crawl into Freddy's heart. Five soldiers remained. Then four, three, two, and then none.

Rumbling sounded in the distance.

A bloody Freddy in tattered clothes breathed heavily as he clenched his fists. "Is that really not enough?" he asked Bloodshed.

"It should be close."

Freddy sucked in a breath of cold air and whirled.

An army of gold-armored soldiers formed a massive wall around the entire fortress. A number of commanders at the peak of the second star shouted out commands but hesitated at the apparent lack of resistance.

All that stood in their way was a single man who appeared to be on death's door.

Freddy completely ignored them and looked for the leader of the wave.

Not too far away from where he was stood the leader, clad in fancy armor, billowing with the aura of an early three-star.

When using Blood Sacrifice, the amount of blood wasn't the only thing that mattered. The quality of the blood mattered too. Naturally, the value of a three-star's blood would be far greater.

The general spotted him, and Freddy felt the full suppressive force of the aura wash over him.

He gritted his teeth.

Freddy had never fought someone above his rank in a "fair" fight. And even now, he wasn't really sure he could win.

Even when all the ways three-stars were more powerful than two-stars were put aside, there was one thing that made fighting above one's rank ridiculously difficult—suppression.

The suppression of a higher-ranked fighter wasn't just a vague, intimidating feeling. Rather, when someone suppressed their opponent, that meant that in a direct collision of their abilities, the abilities of the suppressed party would be far less effective.

If Freddy used something like Flowing Strike, and his opponent used an ability to defend, the effect of the Flowing Strike would be lowered drastically. The same thing applied to the opposite scenario.

But Freddy had fought people above his rank—even far above him. And every time, he managed to come out on top. This wasn't just due to dumb luck, either. It was because he had access to a form of attack that just happened to completely ignore the suppression of rank—a spirit ability.

With a wild roar, Freddy charged right at the mounted general. The general spotted his advance and accepted the challenge. He raised his argent halberd, and his horse charged forward, with the tide of soldiers moving aside in unison to clear the way.

The two men charged through a battlefield of scattered corpses, rapidly approaching each other.

Once he was close enough, Freddy jumped into the air. The general mounted his halberd and prepared to spear Freddy through his torso. But moments before the attacks connected, Freddy shouted from the top of his lungs. "Leviathan's Fury!"

Instantly, his whole body exploded in a shower of blood as his bones formed into spiked spurs and assumed the shape of a leviathan's skull, biting down on the charging general. The man immediately reacted, using some sort of metal-affinity ability to create a shimmering sheen of protection on his armor, but the skull bit down, pushing the general off his horse and chewing his armor. The spiked teeth ruined the defensive ability and slid through the cracks, leaving shallow wounds and cracking the armor all across its surface.

The bones retracted, and Freddy continued falling towards the general. His body was ruined, and the healing wasn't nearly enough to offset the damage he took. But he ignored that, forming a fist of broken bone before the general could regain himself and use another defensive ability. Gore Knuckles formed. Both stars shone in his soul as a Flowing Strike coursed through his mangled flesh, moving with the momentum of a falling mountain as it crashed on the general's chestplate.

With a deafening crack, the chestplate and several spikes broke apart as Freddy's blow sank into the man's sternum, breaking skin and shattering bone as the spikes pierced the man's heart. The ground behind the general exploded with cracks as the man spat blood and the influx of healing closed Freddy's wounds.

With a sputtering cough, the general's body went limp, and with a nourishing flow, the ether coursed into Freddy's body, signaling the man's death.

"Master, that will be enough!" Bloodshed said.

"Ugh…" Freddy groaned as he got up to his feet. His knees shook so hard he looked like he was about to fall over at any moment. Most of the bones in his body were cracked, held together with a very thin layer of tissue from what little healing he could get with that last strike. And that tissue was already fraying.

"The… The general is dead!"

"Claim the assassin's head!"

Freddy turned around and started running. His steps were limp, and his breathing was ragged. He wouldn't be able to make it back to the fortress. Hell, he could barely even walk.

With a thought, he extracted a giant metal cube from his ring and pressed a button. The seams lit up with the pale glow of ether, and the cube unfolded into a motorcycle. He jumped on it and stepped on the pedal. He revved it and pushed the bike to its limits, biting into the stored ether to accelerate faster. The wheels spun wildly, digging into the dirt for a long second as he suddenly sped up, just in time to avoid a volley of arrows coming his way.

The army didn't give up. A number of arrows kept flying at him, many striking his skin, with only a few hitting the bike without doing much damage.

Freddy felt his instincts flare suddenly and turned around just in time to spot the massive ballista bolt flying his way. With a click of his tongue, he reached out with his right arm and used his bare flesh to block the strike. The bolt flew right through his hand, crushing it into pieces, but his efforts were enough to redirect it away from his head.

The bike was momentarily thrown out of balance, but he regained control as he accelerated towards one of the broken towers. The tower had crumbled, leaving a pile of debris right outside the fortress. Freddy sped up towards one of the slanted pieces and used it to ramp over the wall.

While still flying midair, he hurriedly folded the bike and put it away into his ring to spare it from the damage of the fall while he himself slammed into the side of the tower, breaking his arm and tumbling to the bailey below.

Without even getting up, he opened his eyes and shouted. "Blood Sacrifice!"

There was an interesting interaction between Freddy's Blood Ring and Blood Sacrifice.

Blood Sacrifice, despite being a spirit ability, was still a blood-affinity spell, which made the effects of the ring apply to it—the cost was reduced by, 6% and the power was amplified by 5%. However, Blood Sacrifice didn't have a set price. What the cost reduction actually did was make the blood he sacrificed more valuable.

94 parts of blood had the same value as a 100—that was no longer a discount—it was a 6.4% boost to power. But that was only the base power. With a base power of 106.4%, the 5% bonus to power brought the final value to 111.7%.

Blood started gathering.

Freddy could hear the distant yelps of startled soldiers. Their siege weapons went full force, raining boulders and bolts down on the fortress, but it wasn't enough to stop Freddy.

The massive pool of blood converted into blood essence and slowly took the form of a giant skeleton towering over the fortress. Standing on three legs, what looked like a spine tree with skulls as fruit conjured into existence.

This was by far the most bizarre form Freddy had seen Bloodshed take. But strange or not, he had accomplished his goal. "Bloodshed!" he called mentally. "Do some damage so I can heal!"

"Understood," the skeleton said. One of the spine branches reached out for the wall. The skull on the end of the branch opened its jaw wide, taking a huge bite. It slowly lifted the massive wall section into the air and threw it towards the army.

The entire realm shook. The soldiers screamed as a massive cloud of dust lifted into the air. Freddy felt his whole body rapidly recover to at least natural quality. "Holy shit…"

He quickly got up and rushed to Lucas.

The patch of tissue had already frayed a lot. It was leaking blood, and Lucas was unconscious, pale as bone. But he was still alive.

Freddy picked him up and rushed outside. "Bloodshed!"

"Understood," the skeleton answered as it reached out several skulled spine branches towards the central tower.

Twenty meters away, Freddy urged the bike to unfold faster. As it finally formed, he draped Lucas over the back and sat down.

With a swing of one of the skulls, the tower collapsed, and with another swing, the barrier of darkness shattered, the portcullis behind it crumbling into pieces.

Freddy stepped on the pedal and rushed straight through the exit.

As he moved through the cloud of dust and exited the fortress, he spotted a startled man in black gear nearby. It was the same uniform that the assassins had been wearing. "Hey buddy!" Freddy screamed as he conjured a Blood Javelin and threw it at the man, hitting him square in the chest. "Fuck you!"

Without pause, Freddy continued riding towards the plaza, moving straight past a number of bewildered delvers. It didn't take long to reach the passage and exit the interspace.

There, he immediately turned to face the healers. He brought the half-dead Lucas to them and put him down.

The healers eyed Freddy a bit, looking over his tattered armor. He was practically half-naked—there was more dried blood on him than clothing.

Seeing them hesitate, he released his peak two-star over and growled. "Hurry the fuck up! He's almost dead!"

The healers jumped to their feet at the command and rushed to help the wounded Lucas while Freddy glared at them. The message behind his gaze was clear as day—

Fuck it up. I dare you.

***

Bloodshed moved a large chunk of the tower to the entrance, using it to barricade the exit so that nobody would come inside. Then, the large number of skulls turned to face the army of men standing frozen and watching in terror.

The dungeon run wasn't over yet.

***

Lucas's treatment went… all right. His neck was patched up, and several holy-affinity healers used supernatural-quality healing on him. The healing of the holy affinity was awfully expensive to use. Despite several healers going all out to treat Lucas, only once they were fully exhausted did they manage to finish their job.

While it wasn't exactly scar tissue, there was a visible discoloration along Lucas's neck. The boy was still deathly pale and unconscious, but he would survive. The bloody, exhausted Freddy picked the boy up and headed home. Well, after paying an insane sum for the healing.

Throughout his entire way back, he felt an immense rush of healing continuously pour into his body. It appeared that Bloodshed was still fighting inside the dungeon. He wasn't only getting an influx of healing, either—every so often, he was filled with ether as Bloodshed killed one of the commanders.

Freddy wasn't surprised to see this. Might as well keep going, he supposed. Although he lamented leaving before he could get the reward. However, it wasn't the time to think about that.

Once Hellen saw them return, she was petrified. She berated Freddy with the type of righteous wrath only a mother could muster, and he remained quiet, accepting whatever words she directed his way, and continuously apologized.

He had been so stupid.

Why did he think it was safe to bring Lucas with him?

He wasn't exactly a complete nobody in this city anymore. The people around him would inevitably be pulled into whatever conflict he was part of.

Again and again, he kept making miserable mistakes. Was he just that stupid? Or was his ego going out of control?

At any rate, he had to ensure the safety of these two. With Freddy's identity being so public, he wouldn't be surprised if someone tried breaking into his apartment one of these days. He'd talk to Thor. He'd beg on his knees if he had to. These two needed to be protected.

Once Hellen was thoroughly exhausted from screaming at him, he left her alone with Lucas and retreated to his room in shame. There, he collapsed on his bed and sighed. Right about this point, he finally felt the constant influx of lifesteal stop. "I guess Bloodshed is finished," he said with a sigh. "A pity."

The warm feeling of lifesteal had been a comforting presence. Now that it had stopped, he was left with nothing but the cold feeling of shame.

And then something unexpected happened.

Suddenly, a strange light lit up before him. "What!?" he yelped as he jumped and looked around. However, there was no enemy attacking him. Instead, he was faced with a familiar sight. This was the light of the reward for the dungeon manifesting before him. "Huh!? You still get a reward even if you leave the dungeon?"

But something was wrong. The light was far brighter than the last time he got a reward.

"Master," Bloodshed called into his mind. "It seems that the dungeon only has six waves."

Freddy's eyes shot wide open. "What the hell did you do?"

He could practically feel the skeleton grinning ear to ear in its shell, deep within his soul.

"I cleared it."