Blood Shaper

Book 3: Chapter 11

“Why are there so damn many of these things?” Kay wondered at a level of volume that was basically a shout as the swarm of giant praying mantises rushed in again. They weren’t the most powerful of monsters, the only thing he really noticed that was all that monstrous about them was their size, but there were what Kay thought was an insane number. Hundred upon hundreds of them had hurled themselves at him, and the same number had died as he smashed them with the blood of their own kin.

Their blood was strange to Kay. He hadn’t actually tried controlling blood from insects before, and it was nothing like “regular” blood. This specific stuff was a weird orange color that contrasted with the light green of the giant bugs’ carapaces, and it was thinner than what he was used to. The differences made it strange for him to control magically, but it wasn’t enough of a change to keep him from brutally slaughtering the monsters as wave after wave threw themselves into the meat grinder that was Kay.

No one answered the questions, the rest of his group being too busy to actually pay attention to anything but the battle. The majority of the group that had come with him were scouts and stealthy types in order to better take a close look at the pirate port when they got there. That did mean that Kay was one of three people that had any level of tankiness, so he stood at the front and melted the bugs that were bigger than human children with spinning blades of blood. The high-pitched shrieking that was coming from every direction didn’t help either.

Here and there, even larder mantis monsters popped up above the see of their smaller brethren, and arrows and bolts would fly from half a dozen people. There were only one or two of the big ones still standing, and as he watched, one of them fell after another barrage of projectiles.

“Sir!” One of his people shouted right in his ear. “Chief says a big one is coming!”

“Well-”

From between the two pillars of stone that marked the passage deeper into the cavernous area the bugs were flooding from, stomped the largest of the mantises so far. It was taller than Kay by at least a foot and had four sickle arms that flashed around wildly, dicing up its smaller kindred as it shrieked and rushed at the defensive line.

“Fuck this!” Kay held up a hand and launched a bolt of orange bug blood at the creature.

It whipped its blades up with incredible speed and made a two-layer wall of blades that dispersed the attack before it could hit anything vital. There were a few scratches on the blades, and one of the arms had a gouge in it, but it otherwise was unharmed as it resumed its forward charge.

Kay rushed forward to meet it, gathering a storm of blood with himself as the eye to sweep up and crush the smaller bugs. He coated himself in blood armor and summoned a blood halberd, stepping forward into a thrust as the monster rushed into range.

With even more impressive speed than its size belied, it smashed Kay’s strike off to the side and replied with two of its own. Kay deflected the attacks by extruding plates from his armor that knocked the scythe blades off to the side, and the dance began. They dueled back and forth, trading blows, parries, dodges, and blocks. Neither of them managed to land a solid blow, with there only being small cuts and cracked pieces of armor after dozens of exchanged attacks.

Kay did his best to suppress a grin as he fought the monster. It had no real intelligence in its eyes, just a monstrous rage at what it saw as an enemy, but to Kay, this creature was the perfect foe. It wasn’t too tough of an enemy like Meten or Eleniah, with an incredible amount of experience more than him and a tier advantage to boot. But it was just a little better than him when it came to melee combat, which he acknowledged again as it managed to cut through his helmet and slice his cheek. It was the perfect enemy to grind his Skills against, which was one of the two reasons that he came on this trip in the first place.

The monster shrieked again as Kay managed to nick its side, and it suddenly jumped back faster than Kay expected. Immediately after landing, it flicked out a pair of wings he hadn’t noticed and charged back in, twice as fast as before. Kay barely managed to dive out of the way as four razor-sharp appendages sliced through where his body had been.

The rest of his group had been ignoring his fight and mopping up what was left of the smaller bugs as their numbers began to dwindle. It seemed like the big one was the last line of defense for whatever hive or colony they’d accidentally stumbled into. As the giant bu rose into the air and let out another scream, Kay’s people started getting involved. Arrows and bolts started peppering the creature, most of them bouncing off its chitin, although one or two hit weak points and dug into the monster.

One such lucky hit managed to piss it off as a crossbow bolt punched into its neck. Its shriek sounded pained for the first time, and it dove at the person who’d shot it. The woman tried to dodge, but the mantis was faster, and it left a gash up her arm and into her neck as it dive-bombed her. She collapsed on her side, and Kay decided to end this.

He reached out and grabbed control over the mass of orange insect blood covering the ground. It was enough to fill a swimming pool, Kay estimated, and he put it to use. Eleniah had told him that he technically didn’t need the gestures he used to control his Blood Manipulation, but in reality, everyone did it. Controlling it entirely mentally was so difficult one in a hundred or fewer people managed to do it at all. So with a dramatic-looking gesture, Kay thrust his hand upwards, and a pillar of orange erupted from the ground.

The creature danced to the side through the air, dodging the attack. It managed to dodge the second pillar and the third, but boxed in between the first three, it didn’t dodge the fourth. A pillar of sticky orange blood slammed into it, then started to encompass the mantis. The other three pillars joined in, and slowly Kay dragged the struggling monster to the ground.

A bearded man stepped over to Kay’s side.

“Status?” Kay asked before the man could speak.

“Six injured, one seriously, but the healer says she’ll be fine.” The man looked at Kay from the corner of his eye as they both looked at the monster. “She could use some blood.”

“Of course.”

The man pointed at the monster with his chin. “A beast like that will have some good parts to it.”

“I was going to cut its head off.”

The man took a moment to inspect the monster then nodded. “Aye, that should work. That leaves the blades and the good bits of chitin.”

Kay pulled the mantis to the ground and forced its head back. With a sweeping motion of one hand, Kay detached a blade and took the mantis’ head off right at the top. Its body twitched in a violent dance that sent waves of the orange blood jostling across the pool that covered the ground. It slowly subsided until it lay still.

“It’s dead.” The man said.

“Good.” Kay let the blood he was controlling go, and it fell to the ground, creating a knee-high wave that traveled a few feet. Kay ignored it even as a few dismayed cries came from a few voices around him, and he strode over to the injured woman. At a nod from their healer, he sent a stream of blood out of his hand, cutting from the inside, and then sent the blood into the woman, adding his healing magics to the already underway treatment.

Five or six minutes later, the healer nodded at Kay to stop. “She’s fine,” The young man declared. “Or, uh, not fine, but stable.”

“Good.” He reached out and patted the man on the shoulder. The guy was maybe a year younger than Kay, yet somehow it felt like a significantly larger gap. “Good job.” The healer mumbled something in reply, and Kay decided to leave it at that. Turning around, Kay found the bearded man, Nim Halloway, his second for this trip, holding out two canteens.

“Big one,” He said, shaking one hand to indicate which canteen he was talking about, “Special one,” He wiggled the other.

“Thanks.” Kay grabbed the “special one” and concentrated. Focusing as best he could, he drew the blood of the biggest mantis out of the rest and drew it into the canteen he held. After a few minutes, he couldn’t tell the difference between the rest of the orange blood, and he stopped. Trading with Halloway, he grabbed the “big” canteen and pulled the remainder of the bug juices into that one, with much less focus and a lot more speed.

There were more than a few grateful murmurs as Kay pulled the residue of battle under his control off of his subordinates, and he shared a nod with Halloway as he handed the other canteen over.

“I’ll go store these.”

“Thanks.”

Kay watched Halloway walk off, mulling over a few things as he took a moment in the stillness at the end of the battle. Following their unexpected-by-them windfall from the stolen Nelamian dimensional bag, Kay had invested heavily in more enchanted containers to store blood. He’d brought a number of them with him on this trip to do exactly what he’d just done, store different types of blood in different containers. He hoped to be able to pull the speed magic he was pretty sure the big mantis had had from its blood, and the blood of the regular mantises would be good for experimenting. There was still an endless sea of things to learn about his Classes and Path, and he needed to start gathering data.

He switched channels back to reality as Halloway came back. Originally one of the human residents of Meten’s home village, which made up slightly less than a quarter of the population, Halloway had been their chief hunter for years. He’d somehow kept the title as the village had joined Avalon, and almost everyone called him ‘Chief’. He and Kay hadn’t been getting along on a personal level over the last week, but Kay could easily admit that the man was good at his job and his Classes and Skills.

“Everyone that’s ready to work has started harvesting what we can,” Halloway said as he stepped closer.

“Anything worth getting from the little ones?”

Halloway swept his eyes over the corpses that littered the ground, using the Skill he’d told Kay about that could evaluate animal and monster corpses for useful materials. “The blades aren’t bad; it might be worth collecting them and seeing if we can sell them to some of those flesh smith types. Otherwise, not really. Most of the good stuff is on the bigger ones, and that ‘un.” He nodded at the body of the giant mantis that a few people were already starting to cut up.

“I’m sorry, the fuck is a flesh smith?” Kay demanded.

Halloway gave him a sharp look, then shook his head. “Outworlder, right. Flesh smiths are a weird magic crafting Class that use parts of living this to make stuff. Armor and weapons usually. A good smith can incorporate monster parts into stuff to make it better, but flesh smiths use only bits of creatures.” He spat on the ground, “Most of ‘em prefer to be called ‘monster smiths’, but there are enough stories of them using people bits that no one will stop calling them ‘flesh smiths’.”

“And that’s not a banned class!?”

He shrugged, “Nah, there’s no proof, just scary stories. ‘Course, people don’t like ‘em round none.”

“I bet!” Kay shook his head in wonder and a bit of nausea. “Should we sell the stuff from the big ones to someone like that, too?”

“Maybe? If we get a good enough smith, we could probably use them ourselves for some good gear.” Halloway shrugged, “Depends on what happens.”

“Well, either way, it’s worth gathering up.”

“That’s why we brought the bags!” Halloway cheered, gesturing at the large number of dimensional bags they’d brought, another of Kay’s big investments into Avalon.

“You going to join in?” Kay asked, knowing Halloway’s skill with dissection already.

“Nah, I’ll let the young ones get some experience.”

That was the same reason Kay spent most of the battle defending instead of rampaging through the ranks of the weaker enemies. As much as this trip was a scouting trip and a chance for Kay to level Skills, it was also a chance to train up some of Avalon’s people.

Speaking of… “I’m going to check my Status.”

“’Kay.” Halloway drawled.

Kay had to fight down a laugh. Halloway wouldn’t get it since the only reason it sounded like he’d said Kay’s name was the translation magic. He turned away and pulled up his notifications, then his Status, smiling happily as he noticed multiple new levels.

[————————————————————]

Name: Kenneth “Kay” Davis

Race: Outworlder Human

Age: 25

Highest Tier: IV

Total Tiers: 29

Class Slots: 10 Combat Class Slots/7 Non-Combat Class Slots

5 Combat Class Slot Used/5 Non-Combat Class Slots Used

Classes:

Combat:

- Expert Blood Manipulator: Tier IV -

Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 30

- Expert Swordsman (Bastard Sword): Tier IV -

Skills: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) - Level 30

- Polearm Wielder (Halberd): Tier III -

Skills: Polearms (Halberd) - Level 25

- Blood Shaper: Tier IV -

Skills: Shape Blood - Level 31

- Blood Melder: Tier IV -

Skills: Meld Blood - Level 6

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Combat:

- Bloody Healer: Tier III -

Skills: Blood Transfusion - Level 22

Healthy Blood - Level 20

Blood Regeneration - Level 21

-Apprentice Cartographer: Tier II

Skills: Spatial Determination - Level 16

Expanded Sight - Level 14

Sharpened Memory - Level 15

Stable Footing - Level 13

Drawing - Level 20

Cartography - Level 20

-Apprentice Mapmaker: Tier II

Skills: Effective Communication (Drawing) - Level 17

Drawing - Level 20

Cartography - Level 20

- Blood Enhancer: Tier II -

Skills: Enhance Blood - Level 11

Blood Boost - Level 11

- Blood Mayor: Tier I -

Skills: Leadership - Level 10

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Class Skills: Identify - Level 5, Appraisal - Level 5, Inspect - Level 5, Punch Daggers - Level 5, Writing - Level 5, Reading - Level 5, Running - Level 5, Sprinting - Level 5, Domain of Blood - Level 1,

Titles: Class Line Progenitor, Class Creator VI, System Access (Minor), Blood Mayor of Avalon

[————————————————————]

His grin grew even wider as he saw he’d finally hit level thirty in both Manipulate Blood and Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword), and he cheerfully tiered up to four in both of those Classes. Those last few levels in those two classes had seemed like they’d been taking forever!

Kay ran through his entire Status, and overall he was pleased. He still wasn’t happy about the stagnation of his Blood Melder and Blood Shaper classes, and he internally griped for the hundredth time about not being able to see the debt he owed for the power boost against the Eldritch Being. He knew it existed from context, but he didn’t know how much he owed. The rest of his Classes had leveled a decent amount since that battle, though, and he was happy with his work. His Polearm Wielder was almost to tier four, his two mapping classes were almost to three, and he’d finally gotten Blood Enhancer to tier two a few months ago. It turned out that refining the same boosts was just as important as experimenting with news ones for that Class, and he’d had to refocus his efforts on it.

The only Classes he was struggling with were the two that he needed to pay back the boost for, Blood Mayor, which wouldn’t tier up until he increased his Noble Title, and his Blood Healer Class, which had slowed heavily in leveling after hitting tier three. Chitel had told him he needed to spend time actually using the Skills to heal, instead of just blasting them at people and relying on the passives, but he wasn’t really sure how to do that, and he hadn’t had the time to learn from her. It was on his list of things to do, although that list was growing by the day.

Done with his Status check, he turned back to Halloway. Remembering his earlier question, Kay brought it up with the experienced woodsman.

“Where did these things come from?”

Halloway pointed deeper into the cavern ahead of them. “In there. Probably a nest. We should crush it once we’re done.”

Kay rolled his eyes. “Let me try that again. Why are there so many damn monsters here and a fraction of the number we’ve seen out here near the valley?”

“Territory.” He gestured around them, “This area was these bugs’ territory. Other monsters and animals stay out unless they have to or want a fight.” He turned and pointed back towards Avalon, “Back that was was the territory of something big a scary that everything was staying away from.”

“The Eldritch Being,” Kay said, understanding what the older man was getting at.

Halloway spat on the ground, “Yup. Creepy thing scared everything else off, ‘cept the ones too dumb to care. Didn’t help that them poor Rittian folk were probably eating every damn thing they could get to when they came up to the surface. Now that they’re gone, more monsters and animals will head that direction to fill in the power vacuum.” He chuckled a little, “’Course, they’ll end up running into Avalon and getting their asses kicked, but things will get a little more interesting back home till it settles down.”

Kay frowned as he stared back towards Avalon. “If the Rittians were eating things in the valley, which they totally were just based on how crazy that thing was driving them, how did that slaver get through?”

“Ah?”

“I remember he talked to me about the geography of the area, and he knew going through the valley was the fastest way through the area. How’d he know that if the Rittians were in the way?”

Halloway shrugged, “Maybe he got lucky a few times, and he missed them, maybe he bribed them somehow, or maybe they managed to fight them off. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find out when we scout the port.”

“Maybe…” Kay mentally added the question to a list to get Susan to ask the slave merchant. The obvious answer, the middle of the maybes Halloway had mentioned, was a nasty thought. Driven mad by the Eldritch Being, the Rittians that had lived in the tunnels around and under the valley had only cared about two things. Food and sacrifices. That plus slave merchant led to some really horrible thoughts.

Kay packed up the idea and put it away for later. “So, you think we should destroy the nest if we can find it?”

“Yup, squish it now, and we don’t have to worry about it when we expand out here.”

“You think we’ll do that?”

“Sure?” He shrugged, which Kay was starting to think was his favorite gesture, “Why not?”

“Why not?” Kay muttered. “Well, if we do decide to do that, there’s a port somewhere northish of here that we can probably take. Certainly not going to let the pirates keep it, long term.”

Halloway grinned. “Now that’s an idea!”

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