[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 189 - Crush

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]

Sorry for the missed upload. I've had an agonizing week of very little sleep. Nothing serious, just a bunch of nonsense ended up piling up, requiring me to wake up early several times, and coupled with a restless baby, yeah, I barely got any sleep this week and I wasn't functional enough to finish the chapter on time. It sucks, but it happens when you got a lil baby.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this one. It's pretty good. :)

Cheers!

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Deep in the Frozen Wastes, far from the nearest human settlement, walked a short, brown-haired man. At a glance, he was no different than any other human. But if one focused on his face, their gaze would be met with uncanny, eerie square pupils. 

He held an easy smile on his face as a number of creatures surrounded him. They were furry, white, and about the size of an average dog, with messy jaws of jagged teeth, and three eyes that sat uncomfortably close on their heads.

The man waved his hand. A wind washed over them. It was the kind of predatory gust caressing the skin of those wallowing in despair. Preying on those who believed they had no other choice, no hope, no chance of salvation. 

And it gave them an offer. 

An undercurrent whispered into every monster’s ear. Some of them paused and hesitated, considering the offer of power, while the others barked the whispers away, hissing and growling at the air. 

To be a monster was to be at the constant mercy of larger predators. To be tirelessly searching for sustenance while being sustenance. They had no greater minds with which they could see. They couldn’t plan and dream and organize, or communicate with a language like those enlightened with sapience. 

But they weren’t stupid. They weren’t unfeeling. 

And they all knew what waited for them one day. Same as many others in their packs, they would succumb. They would all eventually die.

The whispers promised them a life in death. An assurance that, should they perish, their sounds wouldn’t just vanish into nothing. They would persist. They would be a part of a greater whole. Forever.

About half the monsters fell to the temptation.

Kaefalge watched gleefully as the Lord of Despair claimed even more souls.

Those who accepted morphed. Their eyes shifted, and their power subtly grew, unlocking a greater potential, aided by the guidance of a wisdom beyond the petty ways of this little world. 

The refusers tried to flee. Moments later, they were torn to shreds.

Taking a deep sigh of satisfaction, he let the monsters go on their way and continued on his journey.

Kaefalge had been busy for the last while, busy leading those pesky humans by the nose. Three people were on his trail, convinced they were chasing Nahar and two others. Fooled by a mirage. 

Shaking his head, he lamented his situation. If they caught up to him—and they might—he was dead. It would either happen or it wouldn’t. It was up to chance, now.

Looking back on the carnage, he sighed. He had once been just like the beasts covered in blood. Foolish and eager for more power. He’d sold his soul for might when he needed it. And now, in death, he was paying the price. 

He knew not the logic behind it. He knew not his master’s plan. He was a pawn. Playing his role in a greater plan.

His steps took him forward, leading ever deeper into the desert of ice and snow.

***

The adjudicator watched the horizon, seeing the distant form of the giant moving into view. It was still about the size of an ant in his eye. But it was coming. And he knew damn well nobody was going to be able to stop it. A sad smile crossed his face. Lifting his glass, he took a sip. 

It had been a while since he’d been moved here. It was a shame that, just as it became fun, it would all come crumbling down.

Even from all the way over here, he could sense the billowing essence overflowing from the gigantic form. He could feel the miasma flowing through the creature’s body. If it stepped within a mile of the walls, half the city was going to be killed in a single breath. 

Raising his watch, he brought up the hologram.

GEORGIE:

Giant coming directly my way.
Location pinged on the map.

REGINALD:

I see it, too.
This is a serious threat. Everyone please gather. 

EMILY: 

Uh oh.
:D
We’re so screwed

PERI:

Coming

FREDDY:

On my way there.

He sighed and shook his head. These kids were smart. They would figure it out as soon as they took a closer look at the coming monster. 

Sadly for most of the people in the city, the evacuation grounds in the interspace weren’t ready yet. Not even close. Most of them would have to flee elsewhere, and odds were, few would make it far given the monsters roaming the roads. 

That being said, he sent out the commands to get everything ready. Perhaps they could save a few people if they got started immediately.

And as for him, well…

He had to go stop a certain young fool from doing something insane.

***

Freddy made it to the top of the hill, right where Georgie pinged the map. 

As soon as he stepped into view, his jaw dropped. 

First, there was a massive dragon of pure, ghastly fire sitting on the edge of the cliff. Nobody seemed bothered by that for some reason. Standing around were dozens of seasoned fighters. Not one person other than the elites was under the third star. Except for the three one-stars Freddy brought with him.

As soon as Freddy’s team approached, everyone turned around to face them. 

He had been worried that they would freak out about Sophia, but other than a glance at her bizarre form, nobody said anything. It made sense, he supposed. This was a gathering of some of the biggest freaks in the empire.

Compared to the dragon of living flame that was just casually hanging out right there, Sophia wasn’t even that weird.  

He spotted the four elites standing on a high point and looking over into the distance. 

Emily turned around, spotted him, and then grinned widely. “Welcome to the party, Freddy! Also, wow, you brought one-stars with you? Geniuses or canon fodder?”

Scowling at her, he sighed. Choosing to side-step the question, he asked, “What’s the situation with the giant?”

“Well…” Reggie said with an awkward smile. “This…”

“It’s probably over,” Georgie said. 

Freddy looked at her. “What is?”

“Our cute little attempt at keeping hundreds of thousands of people alive!” Emily said with a pleasant smile. “That thing got the death affinity and enough essence to flood the whole city. It doesn’t even have to get close—whatever it as much as breathes on will become unlivable for weeks.”

Freddy froze upon hearing that. Then, he took a deep breath. “Okay then. What are we gonna do about it?”

Peri shook her head. “I’m sorry. We can’t stop it.”

For his part, Freddy remained completely calm. He could stop the giant. In fact, he could snap his fingers and be done with it. He’d killed enough monsters to break his previous record for the biggest Blood Sacrifice several times over. 

But he really, really didn’t want to reveal Bloodshed unless absolutely necessary. Sighing, he looked around. “There’s really nothing we can do? Really?”

Georgie shook her head. “Anywhere within a mile of that thing is an instant death zone. It can flood its surroundings with so much miasma that almost nothing could survive the attack. The sad thing is, giants like these aren’t usually that hard to kill. You just have to trip them over. Due to their sheer mass, the fall is enough to tear them apart.”

“So why aren’t we doing that?”

“We don’t have the time?”

Freddy sighed. “And how much do we have?”

“It will be at the city wall in about five hours,” Reginald said. “That’s… sadly… not enough to create a trap big enough to trip it.”

Freddy nodded. He walked forward to get a clear view of the giant. His eye was again drawn towards the dragon of pure fire. “I’m sorry, but that’s your elemental, Peri, isn’t it?” he asked the short woman.

She nodded. 

He really wanted to ask the woman how she summoned that thing with only the essence capacity of a two-star, but it wasn’t exactly the right time for that. It was clearly something related to her unique affinity. Which, admittedly, made him feel a bit jealous. “Couldn’t you send that after the giant? Just like… have it spew fire at its face?”

She giggled at that. “I’m sorry, but while I’m sure this seems rather impressive, the dragon is basically just an essence battery. It can spit out a lot of fire, but it's not capable of doing much damage to targets that suppress me. I’ve been using it to cull the hordes when they get too thick. Even if I sent it, it would just be swatted out of the air like a big fly.”

“Oh. Well that sucks.” His gaze turned to the others. “Anyone else got anything?”

Emily snorted. “You’d need either godlike resistance to miasma or a projectile powerful enough to kill it from at least five miles away.” She smile sweetly at him, putting her hands together. “Oh, I know! I heard you have quite the throw! Perhaps you could do it!”

He froze at that. “Oh shit. I think I actually can.”

Emily burst into laughter. She actually laughed so hard she doubled over.

Ignoring her, he turned to face his support. “I’m gonna need your help with this one. Let’s move a little higher up the hill.”

Georgie stepped up. “Wait, you’re actually serious? I advise you to rethink this.”

He scowled at her. “Why?”

Suddenly, the adjudicator appeared from behind them. “Because if you don’t kill it, you risk enraging it.”

Freddy turned to face the adjudicator. “What do you mean?”

The man shook his head. “Giants like that are as dumb as elementals. Even if you can hit it from here, it will lash out on everything around it, and if that doesn’t work, it will start sprinting this way. With its mass, that will wreck its body, but not enough to stop it from killing the whole city before we can complete anything that even remotely resembles an evacuation. So I implore you, Mr. Stern, let us stop this here.”

Freddy thought for a long moment. Even if that happened, he’d just summon Bloodshed to intercept it. With how much blood he’d gathered, he could probably make it as big as the damn giant. “I’ll give it a try, anyway,” he said.

“I don’t have any legal power to stop you,” the adjudicator said. “But I can tell you that you’re being a damned fool, and if this goes poorly as it most certainly will, you will be putting the lives of many people at risk, including—”he pointed at the group of young elites—”a huge number of workers they’d brought with them. Even if I can’t stop you, they definitely won’t let you do this.”

Freddy turned to face the elites. It was only then that he noticed nobody was in a joking mood anymore. In fact, Emily was looking at him as if daring him to try.

He groaned. “Look, I can’t reveal why, but I can tell you with absolute confidence that I can stop that giant.”

Emily took a hostile step forward. A lock of her hair suddenly extended and pressed to Freddy’s throat. It moved right through the paper-thin armor as if it weren’t there, and he felt it cut slightly into his skin. Her billowing hair of shadow was likely full of hidden blades. 

She stared him straight in the eye. “Are you willing to swear on your life?”

Without missing a beat, he nodded. “Yup.”

Her eyes widened in shock slightly, and she reluctantly retracted her blade. “Fine,” she said after a moment of hesitation. “But if you fail, you won’t get a quick death.”

He scoffed. “Oh, it would definitely take you a while to kill me.”

“You know, this confidence is almost attractive,” she said mockingly, sneering at him. “It would be so funny if you fucked it up now.”

Thankfully, he was still wearing the golden mask, so nobody could see him blush. He was once more discovering highly uncomfortable stuff about himself. It seemed like the life he’d lived had fucked him up in more ways than he thought. It certainly wasn’t normal to be into the thought of a woman trying to kill him.

But whether it was normal or not, he was starting to seriously ask himself—did he genuinely have a serious crush on this woman? He glanced at her and briefly felt his heart tense.

Oh, shit. 

He had no idea how to feel about that. He had told Sophia he wanted to avoid dating anyone too far below him in power. And there she was. A woman who had absolutely no reason to be intimidated by him. 

So why not give it a shot?

But as soon as he asked himself that, he knew that he had a problem on his hands.

He wanted to know what her family was up to. What she was up to. 

Because he couldn’t fathom the thought of having any kind of real relationship with someone who had anything to do with any kind of exploitation. And this was a woman from a family of assassins. Sure, they had some kind of “ethics committee” overseeing their jobs, but that meant jack shit to him. 

From all he knew, they were nothing but a den of vipers. But he wanted to hope. That not everyone on that level had a connection to cruelty against those below them. Because was too lonely—lonely enough to betray his own principles if he had no other choice. 

Feeling a little bitter, he turned around and started on his walk up the hill. He didn’t move too far, just enough to get a slightly better look at the giant in the distance.

“I’m low on essence,” he told Sting, the support, as he sat down and focused. “I’ll take a bit to recover before we get started.”

The combined cost of Hydraulic Throw, Accelerate Blood Projectile, and Blood Javelin was about 28% essence with all the abilities double-starred. Thus, he brought his essence up to 168%. That was enough to cast the full combo six times. It would send exactly twelve javelins flying, hopefully right at the giant’s head. If he couldn’t kill it with that, he would have to summon Bloodshed.

It took him a while to get there, giving the giant enough time to crest a few small hills. Frankly, it was still a little too far away for him to be confident in hitting it, so he gave it another twenty minutes. Then, he got up.

“Are we getting started?” Sting asked. 

Freddy nodded. “Give me that Final Resort and a Blessing of Strength.”

“Are you sure? With what happened—”

“I’ll do a smaller sacrifice this time,” he insisted. “All organs was a bit much, but I reckon my left arm would be just within the range of what I can handle without going insane.”

“I’ll leave it to your judgment.” 

Freddy nodded and waited for the buffs to be applied. “Left arm,” he offered, and a moment later, his left arm went numb as the rest of his body flared with intense energy. 

Mixing regular Blessings with Unholy Blessings was a little dangerous, but he could easily handle the extra backlash. 

Taking a deep breath, he conjured a double-starred Blood Javelin. Two javelins appeared, coated with criss-crossing, branching lines of gold from the Warrior King’s Pendant. The concept of unity kept them tethered. What he did to one would be automatically applied to the other. So he allowed the concept of anti-gravity to carry the first one up into the air as he pulled the other one back. 

Getting into a stance, he activated a double-starred Hydraulic Flex. The concept of charge allowed him to charge the throw up as much as he wanted. The only bottleneck was his body’s ability to handle the power of the throw. Needless to say, he wasn’t going to be holding back this time. 

He allowed the attack to charge to the point where it felt like his shoulder was going to explode. And then, he whispered, “Twisted Pendulum.”

The world suddenly started flying past him as everything sped up. But he kept charging. Soon enough, the ratio twisted and everything slowed down. But he kept charging. Up to the very last second of the effect.

Then, with an added Accelerate Blood Projectile, he finally threw the javelin, aiming straight for the Giant’s head.

Every single bone in his arm broke with the swing, turning his limb into little more than a loose bag of blood and torn muscle tissue as he sent the pair of Blood Javelins flying at a dizzying speed.

They traveled through the air unfettered by drag as the concept of aerodynamics aided their trip. As they moved, they continued to accelerate with the help of the concept of acceleration. 

Just as they were about to hit the giant, they actually burst into flames. 

His eyes widened at the sight. I thought aerodynamics would prevent that. 

But the friction was simply too much. They were moving too fast, and from what he could tell, they would hit right into the giant’s eye. Suddenly, he had a nasty premonition. He looked down at his finger. He hadn’t taken off the Ether Capture Ring. “Uh oh.”

The javelins vanished into the giant’s eye one after another. 

Freddy reached for the ring, but he was too slow. With a deafening crunch, his arm healed itself back to perfection, and he fell over as he shouted in agony. 

An ether coin appeared on the ring. Then, just as it finished forming, it was pushed off by another. And another. And another. He gritted his teeth in pain as the coins continued popping off the ring. For a long ten seconds, they kept appearing, totaling about thirty by the end. 

Breathing heavily, he got back to his feet. He turned to look at the crowd of utterly shocked onlookers. He couldn’t hold back his smile. 

“Told you I can do it.”