[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 201 - Higher Intelligence

Mark vividly remembered the night it all happened. There was a bad feeling, the gnawing type that made it impossible to relax or go to sleep. 

The shadows laughed harder than usual. The moonlight filtering through the window hated him. His reflection… he certainly wouldn’t dare look at it.

He thought it was just a return of his bouts of anxiety, but no. This felt worse—the invisible threat he feared felt more real. And yet, try as he may, he found no reason to feel like this. His apartment was empty. There was nothing outside it, and the security of the building reported nothing out of the usual.

Reluctantly, he concluded it was just his mind playing tricks on him and went to bed.

It was then that the moon hid behind a cloud for but a moment, and by the time it returned… he was standing in the middle of the room. His limbs twisted. Skin dyed in sick splotches of rotting colors. His face… The elongated features would haunt Mark for the rest of his life. 

He looked at Mark with the same square eyes, having sold his soul to the same devil, and then whispered, “Hey, Mark. Look at me,” he said, grinning and revealing an inhuman set of wicked teeth. 

“I’m just like you now.”

***

Mark woke up screaming, clutching his chest and hyperventilating. He looked around the interior of their expanded floating carriage, and found nothing but the man that followed him like a bad odor.

“Another one?” Harold asked in a curious tone, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” Mark said, slowly breathing out and sagging as he got up to a seated position, the sheets falling off his body.

Harold sat not far from Mark, flipping the page of some kind of report. “Are you sure these nightmares aren’t related to the—”

“Yeah,” Mark said, sighing sadly. “I’m sure. These are just regular nightmares.” He chuckled. “Pretty ironic if you ask me.”

Harold stared at him for a long moment before picking up a cup of tea waiting on the same bench he was sitting on. “Hm. Well then…” He took a sip. “You’re just in time. Our mandatory shift is about to begin.”

Sighing, Mark got up, getting dressed in his armor.

They left the carriage parked on the outskirts of the… village, basically, and started in the direction of the closest forest. Legally, they were being forced into participating in the defense against the monster invasion. But technically, nothing specified what they were supposed to be defending. Thus, they had picked a village in the middle of nowhere, one targeted by few creatures of note, and decided to simply wait the invasion out. 

It was at moments like these where Mark felt jittery and uneasy. Basilisk was, to put it kindly, a bit lazy. Not to be mistaken—the man was a work horse when it came to business. But when it came to fighting… 

It had been forever since he’d actively put himself at risk to grow more powerful. If he wanted to stand a chance of getting back to the fourth star, he needed to step on the pedal and push himself; otherwise, he’d be stuck where he was forever.

But Harold was in no hurry. In his eyes, every tragedy was but an opportunity. He was a true vulture at heart. Worse, he was a maggot. As far as he was concerned, the recent events were a bout of unspeakable fortune. Like a true maggot, the more rot and devastation there was, the more he would thrive.

Mark shook his head. Basilisk’s mentality was rubbing off on him, and he wasn’t a fan of it. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of, yes, but at the end of the day, he still considered himself a fighter. 

It was the one thing that kept his pride alive.

Just as they had every single day for the past few weeks, they got started on clearing out the several surrounding miles of anything even vaguely resembling a threat. There wasn’t much to speak of. But with each passing day, the number of monsters they found grew even thinner. And on that day, there seemed to be a sudden, sharp decline in their presence.

“Maybe we’re getting closer to the end?” Mark noted.

Harold chuckled. “Perhaps. But given what the report said, it might just be something more than that.”

“The report?”

“Finally feeling curious?” Harold teased. “It’s funny, really. A notable bulk of monsters has suddenly changed their route. Now, there’s no conclusive evidence yet, but given their current trajectory… I’d wager most of them are headed for Repentawa.”

Mark’s expression grew ugly at those words. When it came to what happened between him and Freddy “Cliff”, he had little to say. Mostly because he avoided thinking about it as much as humanly possible. “Good for them,” Mark said, raising his sword and running ahead. He didn’t stop even when he left their usual range. 

Rather, he kept going, kept looking, hoping for a fight. A place where it was uncertain whether he’d make it out alive. That was always where he felt the most at peace. Where the fire of his heart still burned. 

Wherever he was but a slip up away from getting what he deserved.

***

Freddy had expected a bloody struggle. They had lost many of their defenders, and their first line of defense was pulled all the way back to the wall. Regardless of what Sophia or Bloodshed did, the difficulty was supposed to have leaped exponentially. 

For the first few days, they had certainly felt the pressure. The momentary ebb came to a close, and the tide lifted, washing the plains in hordes of monsters heading their way. 

The earth rumbled from the sounds of Bloodshed chasing the biggest threats down, and few of the defenders could afford to take a break. Freddy himself had been pushed to his absolute limits, and, in fact, were it not for the constant influx of healing—courtesy of Bloodshed—he would have likely lost a few of the fights he found himself in.

One particularly nasty opponent he’d faced was a creature that was almost a minotaur, but rather than a bull, its animalistic features were of a bizarre, horse-like monster. It had been fast and tough, hounding Freddy with clawed slashes of incredible power. Were it not for Bloodshed and the healing it provided with the damage it did, Freddy speculated he’d have had to spend his entire essence reserves to take it down. 

But this way, he could afford to simply trade damage with the creature until it exhausted itself. Every time it struck him, Sanguine Avenger, empowered by the much more powerful Warrior King’s Pendant, which was at +18% damage and durability now, paid the pain back with interest. 

Under these specific conditions, Freddy became a complete nightmare to deal with. In fact, he was starting to think that some of the defenders who’d seen him fight like this feared him more than the skeletal giant. There was something to be said about watching a guy let a monster disembowel him repeatedly, only to then hit back with the kind of power that made the earth quake and the air split apart.

For a brief moment, the morale of the defense force was shaken again. The sudden increase in pressure was starting to make everyone think things would get even worse from here on out. 

But no. 

Other than the few nightmare days at the start, things got easier. And they kept getting easier. Day after day, the number of monsters coming in seemed to be reducing at a notable rate. 

It was about two weeks in that the scouts finally noticed the ravenous undead far off in the wilderness. The report Freddy was given suggested these creatures were somehow immune to the influence of the ether virus, and that current conditions were extremely favorable for them, allowing them to rapidly proliferate like an invasive species—even if the scouts had no idea how exactly these creatures were reproducing. 

The tone of the report was rather alarming, with speculation that the undead could become an even bigger problem than the ether virus if they continued spreading at this rate. 

Needless to say, that wasn’t going to happen. 

Things continued like this for a whole month, with the rate of monsters coming in plateauing at about 3 weeks in. Sophia’s undead only lasted about that long, and it appeared they were starting to expire at about the same rate as she could make more.

But rather than a disappointment, this turned out to be excellent news. As soon as the scouts confirmed that the undead wouldn’t proliferate at an exponential rate, the adjudicator gave out an official order to leave the undead alone. He seemed to believe their appearance was a lucky coincidence—or, at least, that was his official stance. 

Whether he knew more than that, Freddy couldn’t tell. 

Regardless, it was still a relief. The last thing Freddy wanted was for someone to get overly curious and for Sophia to get hurt as a consequence. 

The more time passed, the more bitter the cold weather became. Heavy snowfall started causing trouble with how quickly it piled up on the walls and around them. But, ultimately, it turned out to be a net positive. 

Other than a handful of species with a highly specific talent, most monsters, even those who thrived in the cold, were slowed down by the snow. It was unavoidable. Having to push through was just exhausting. 

This was particularly devastating to golems, who relied on essence for movement. By the time they reached the wall, they were usually completely exhausted, making them little more than walking targets for rangers to practice their attacks upon.

And the weather contributed to their safety in other ways, too. 

Flying monsters couldn’t fly much during heavy snow storms, for numerous reasons, be it the sharp temperatures or the turbulent airflow. Then, there was the occasional avalanche that buried large swathes of creatures. Some happened naturally. Others were triggered by scouts who were sent to strategic spots with explosives. 

In this regard, Matt Canstone was a real champion. His talent made climbing mountains borderline effortless, it seemed, given how quickly and efficiently he could set up remote explosives.

The snow also made for excellent cover for traps. 

Another thing that played in the defenders' favor was that the trend of fighters improving and growing also continued. Not just the fighters, either; there was a whole new set of non-combatants who were rapidly gaining experience with maintaining the wall and general infrastructure of the city.

The adjudicator had indeed put in measures to ensure that anyone who could contribute did so, but even without force, almost everyone was itching to do something. Just hiding and waiting could drive people insane. Rather than letting it play out, most of everyone would prefer to feel like they were being useful.

There was a brief, beautiful moment where it all seemed to line up. Victory after victory had emboldened everyone. There were a few incidents of people falling to the ether virus, but after the first attack, additional layers of defense were set up to prevent something like that from happening again. 

Things were going well. There was a persistent feeling that the crisis was slowly coming to a close. 

And then, one day, no monsters came to the city.

The walls were full of jittery defenders. It was too unnatural and sudden. Something had to be going horribly wrong. And, as expected, the scouts confirmed this to be the case. 

Freddy’s communication crystal started ringing and he picked up.

The adjudicator’s voice rang out. “We have a problem.”

“I can tell that much,” Freddy said, sighing. “What’s happening?”

“The monsters are waiting. They appear to be gathering in a circle around the city. It gets worse. From the reports I’ve received from neighboring regions, there is a notable number of creatures who suddenly turned in this direction.”

Freddy’s stomach clenched. “Oh that’s really bad.”

It had been readily apparent since the start that some kind of higher intelligence was behind the attack. Not just in starting it, but also in directing monsters towards settled areas. But this was different. Actual strategy was on a different level of threat altogether. 

Freddy’s grip on the crystal tightened to the point where it started flickering. “We need to act immediately. If we just wait, we’ll get overwhelmed.”

“I agree. You should go right away, and I’ll organize the defenders to form a strike team. We have to break the formation they’re building before it gets big enough to swallow us whole.”

“I’m on it,” Freddy said, immediately setting off, travelling in great leaps to minimize contact with snow. 

“Good luck, Freddy,” was the last thing the adjudicator said before cutting the connection. 

Sanguine Avenger in hand, Freddy charged forward, making his way through the plains of snow and grove of trees before finally reaching a few miles away from the city and encountering the encirclement. 

With a massive leap, he headed for the nearest monster, a four-legged creature resembling no animal he’d ever seen before, and swung his sword down. With the wet sound of bones being crushed under weight, and with a splash of crimson, he started his slaughter. 

During his many days of fighting against the invasion, the Warrior King’s Pendant had grown a truly ridiculous amount. At 18% bonus to both damage and durability, any weapon he held became immensely more dangerous.

Viewing the item’s two effects through numbers alone was a bit deceptive, however. It was easy to assume that the weapon was twice as strong now as it had been back when it only offered 9% to both. But that simply wasn’t the case. At all. 

Take a mortal man for example. Then, have him punch a window. If he hit hard enough, the glass would break. If he didn’t, his finger would probably break instead. In this case, hitting harder would make him take less damage. In a similar vein, if his fist was made of stone instead of flesh, it would probably take a lot less energy to break the window.

These two examples were quite extreme, but the same principles applied to weapons enhanced by Warrior King’s Pendant. 

Doing more damage at times made the sword suffer less wear. Being more durable made the sword do more damage. The two concepts were distinct and separate as effects in the item, but in practice, they had a deep, profound synergy that made every percent go a lot further than it would otherwise.

But the pendant wasn’t the only thing that grew. So did his Blood Ring. And so did he. 

His killing speed was only somewhat faster than it had been back when he first started. But his efficiency was far greater Even he didn’t truly understand what exactly he was doing better, he did know combat more intimately after all that time spent fighting. He’d forged a mighty metaphorical blade in the Century of Solitude. And now, he’d finally sharpened it at the whetting stone. 

One monster after another fell under his merciless onslaught, and before long, whatever intelligence guided them had them start pulling back. Given that he was herding them along the circle, the crowd of monsters before him started getting thicker at a rather rapid rate. 

Before long, he saw an opening. “Twisted Pendulum.” The monsters were running from him, so all he needed was to wait for the penalty to be over. And once it was, he leaped into the air. 

The massive swarm of beasts running before him filled his entire field of view. As he beheld them, he shaped the perfect sphere of blood, one that would spread just wide enough to cover all of them. 

Then, before the speed-up ran out, he slammed it with a double-starred Tsunami Strike. The shrapnel spread in a cone before him, raining fine and lethally sharp shards of blood at extremely high velocity all over the fleeing horde. In an instant, hundreds—about half the beasts—were culled, and a smaller part was seriously injured, with only a tiny fraction of them remaining relatively unharmed. 

He didn’t need to kill all of them. As long as enough of them were injured, and their formation was broken, he had done his job well enough. Ignoring the stragglers, he ran ahead, opting to keep breaking the encirclement rather than chase down every loose beast that was getting away. 

It was at that moment that he felt something was wrong. 

That had been easy. Even without the blood shrapnel, he estimated he could do critical damage to the formation before enough monsters could gather to overwhelm the city. It had been too easy.

If there was a greater intelligence herding these creatures, it was doing a very poor job at strategizing. There were two possibilities—either Freddy was an element it hadn’t accounted for…

Or this wasn’t the whole plan. 

It was a gut feeling. He didn’t know why, but in a split-second decision, he turned to run towards the city instead. By the time he was half-way there, he was wondering whether he was making a mistake. 

And it was then that it finally reached him. 

The snowflakes dancing in the wind twirled in a maddened haze. The wind screamed in agony.

Someone had just done something truly insane.

And the insanity… it felt a little too familiar. 

His pupils narrowed as he realized what was happening. The crystal in Freddy’s pocket hadn’t lit up yet. It was only starting. But it was on the way. He was on the way. No… rather…

Nahar had been hiding in the city all along.