[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 188 - Horizon Silhouette

“Is everything all right, Mr. Stern?” John asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Freddy stared at Drake and Lily for a long moment. His mask was still on, so when he glanced at the mercenary, the man had no idea Freddy was looking at him. 

I should keep this a secret, he decided, slowly sitting back down. “Nothing. I just remembered something, but it isn’t an immediate problem. Anyway, you wanted to talk to me?”

The man nodded. “I just want to express my gratitude for allowing us to work with you.” He pulled out a box of luxury cigars and cracked the case open. “Perhaps you’d be willing to share one with me?”

“Not in the mood currently,” Freddy said as he leaned further in the chair. “I just wonder where this sudden gratitude is coming from.”

John chuckled. “Today, you killed around 270 times more monsters than I predicted.”

Freddy scowled and snorted. “Your math must have been shit if you were off by that much.”

“My math was sound, I assure you. People usually have limits. They run out of essence. Or hit their tolerance. Or run out of stamina. And if they somehow stretch everything else, eventually, their equipment fails. You, for starters, seem to have infinite stamina.”

The man was right. Freddy did have infinite stamina. Kind of. 

Stamina was a function of wear and tear as well as overall energy stored in the body. Wear and tear was covered by 1% Lifesteal, and his energy reserves could be easily replenished due to his Adaptive Water Body. The grand concept ability affected the way water moved in the body. This made it perfect for digestion and transporting nutrients around. As long as he had food pills, he could keep going.

It was important to note that, without 1% Lifesteal and Sea of Blood, Adaptive Water Body wouldn’t have developed this effect, if for no other reason than that such an immense nutrient and calorie density would kill almost anyone. 1% Lifesteal could heal damage caused by excess nutrients, and Sea of Blood helped store and dilute them. 

John suddenly laughed. “I watched you eat nineteen food pills today,” he counted. “Nineteen! And they’re high-end survival rations, too. Do you have any idea how many calories those have? I’m shocked you don’t cook yourself alive with how much energy you spend while fighting. But even with that aside, I thought your equipment would have to fail eventually. It took me a bit to figure out the trick behind your armor—clever thing, that, and probably quite expensive, too. 

“But your damn sword is something I can’t wrap my mind around. When I first saw you conjure that lump of metal I nearly laughed at you. But not only can you wield that thing with ease, it takes a lot more to break it than the usual Crimson Mercury construct.”

It was Stage 3, had properties of both steel and tungsten, had its power boosted by the Blood Ring, and had its durability enhanced by Warrior King’s Pendant. And this was on top of being simply extremely thick.

At this point, Freddy couldn’t help but sigh. “Is there a reason why you’re sucking up to me?”

“Bah. I’m not trying to be tasteless,” the man insisted. “I just want to apologize for my behavior earlier today.”

Freddy’s eye twitched. “Apology denied.” He chuckled darkly. “What, now that you saw how much money you’ll earn off me you want to be best buddies? Fuck off. If you’re going to be like this only when it benefits you, then I’d prefer you be rude to me, instead.”

The man sagged a bit. “That…” He sighed. “I suppose that’s a valid criticism.”

“Yeah, and you wouldn’t have accepted it if I wasn’t as strong as I am. Now, do you have anything useful to talk about?” 

Freddy knew he would be better off to just let it go, but he seriously couldn’t stand two-faced bullshit like this. 

This man wanted to be rude? Fine. But he didn’t get to go back on it now that he stood to gain something from being chummy, instead. 

John sighed. “I wanted to add that you can rely on us more. I understand you’re an ambitious man, but the golem and wyvern fights were a little too close for comfort.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Freddy said. “If I ever feel actually threatened by something, I’ll have your support cast Final Resort on me.”

The man’s eyes widened. “That ability is called Final Resort for a reason. It will wreck your body if you use it.”

“That’s the one thing I never have to worry about.” And with that, Freddy got up. “It was a pleasure talking to you.”

Now, it was time to have a chat with the two lovebirds. He simply tapped them to force them back to reality, and then whispered, “We should talk in private.” 

They nodded and followed him into one of the rooms. There, he briefly explained his idea to Lily. 

However, rather than eager reception, his suggestion earned him looks of shock from the two of them. 

“What?” Freddy asked. 

Drake scowled at him. “How the hell do you know about her soul construct?”

Freddy froze at that. “Oh. Right. Well, I saw her use it the day I met her in the Fortress Dungeon.”

Drake didn’t like that answer. “Ah, I see… So that’s why you told me to talk to her? Because you knew what her soul construct could do?” He gritted his teeth. “Were you really manipulating and using me at every fucking turn?”

Freddy sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I was. And when I realized I was doing that, that was when I decided to cut you off, because I didn’t want to be the kind of person who did that to people.”

“You seem happy enough to benefit from it, anyway.”

“Lucas…” Lily muttered. “I mean… Drake. Stop.” She put a hand on his shoulder, but he brushed her off.

“Why do you always insist on defending him?” He got to his feet. “What? Do you like him more than me?”

Freddy rolled his eyes so hard they nearly fell out of his skull. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Lucas, please, I’m really not in the mood for teenage drama right now! I get it, I fucked up, you’re going through a lot, the world is insane right now, but it really, really isn’t that deep! I know she can do something and I’m simply asking her to help me! And I will make sure to properly compensate her, too. That’s all!”

He looked like he wanted to say something for a moment, but then he stormed out of the room, entering a different one and slamming the door shut. She ran after him, of course, knocking on the door and calling after him. 

Freddy sighed. “I’m so tired of this shit.” 

Thankfully, he didn’t have anything with blood aura on hand, anyway, so he couldn’t even test his theory yet even if he wanted to. 

He found Sophia in her room, instead, and ended up chatting with her about what she’d learned about her body modification that day. 

The massive flesh golem thing she made was waiting right outside the bunker. She had simply peeled herself off from it and left it there for later. Even if some monsters stumbled upon it, they probably couldn’t chew through the thick bone plating in a short time. And they probably wouldn't even care, anyway.

Now that they were talking about it, Freddy finally decided to bring something up. “You said you don’t want to use undead because you don’t want people to see you as a complete freak. I’d argue this flesh suit thing is infinitely worse.”

She snorted at that. “I had some time to think about it. And while I still don’t want to be gross, unfortunately, most of my power requires me to get a little freaky.”

“So… Undead when?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

Sophia snorted her head in amusement. “That flesh suit is already undead.”

“It is undead, as is every piece of organic matter you get your hands on, I assume” he said. “But it isn’t an undead. It doesn’t move on its own.”

She stared flatly at him. 

His eyes widened. “It does!?”

“There is a tiny little brain hidden in there,” she said. “It is disconnected for now, but I could easily plug it in if I wanted to. I’d have to attach the nerves and that would be it.”

“And what would happen if you did that?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “Honestly, I’m scared to try it. I’d like to have the option there in case I ever need it, but if I connect it and then use Raise Undead on it, I… Let’s just say all hell will break loose if it goes poorly.”

He frowned at that. “Probably shouldn’t do that with the big fella.”

She shrugged. “I have no plan to, unless I have no choice.”

After a moment of hesitation, he nodded. “Might as well give it a shot then, I guess. Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. Anyway, get some rest. We’ll be going soon.”

For another two hours, they simply rested. Freddy caught a bit of shut-eye. He needed to make sure he rested every once in a while, just so that the fatigue didn’t catch up with him after possibly months of fighting. 

Then, they jumped right back into action. It was already nighttime, and that made things complicated. Monsters were more difficult to spot, even with the scout’s Illumination helping light up the environment. 

The horde hadn’t picked up speed again, but they still ended up running into another serious threat. It was a snow minotaur, this time, a bison-looking bipedal with ridiculous physical strength. It didn’t have the absurd essence capacity of a golem, but it was a four-star monster.

“We’re gonna have to call backup for this one!” the scout insisted.

“Support,” Freddy called as soon as he spotted the bull charging them down. “Give me that Final Resort.”

The man’s eyes widened. “Are you—”

“Just do it,” he commanded as he swallowed a mindguard pill. The energy from this would be insane, and without a mindguard pill, he feared he might genuinely damage his brain.

Grunting, the man complied.

The image Freddy got this time wasn’t that of a serpent. It was that of a cat-looking monstrosity with a crazed expression, almost as if it wanted to tear his limbs off and eat them whole right then and there. It wasn’t gleefully waiting for a sacrifice. It was demanding it.

“Time to see what this one’s worth,” he said as he took a deep breath. “All internal organs.”

The mercenary squad went dead quiet when they heard him. The scout muttered something under his breath as he took several steps back, and the support went pale. 

Freddy exploded. Well, not actually, but for a long moment, it looked like he was going to. His entire body inflated like a balloon on the brink of bursting. His vision went red as an unbelievable rage overwhelmed him. 

He couldn’t even form a single coherent thought. In fact, he ended up throwing his sword at the snow minotaur and then rushing it with his fists. The sword impacted with enough force to drop the monster to the ground, and then, with Terror Knuckles on one hand and a Knuckle Blade on the other, he pummeled the monster as it thrashed, fighting for its life.

It managed to get to its feet and throw a punch at him, but he met it with a Tsunami Strike. The minotaur lost the exchange as its whole forearm exploded into gore, and that healed Freddy enough to almost entirely undo the damage the Tsunami Strike did to him. 

So he used another one. 

At some point during the fight, he blacked out, only to wake up some time later in the middle of a sea of monster corpses, a moment after he finished pulling a panther monster’s head off its body with his bare hands. 

“Okay…” he muttered as he finally regained control of his lungs and took a deep breath. “That one… maybe don’t sacrifice all the internal organs for that one.”

“Someone’s finally back,” Sophia said from a bit away in her distorted, booming voice. “I thought you completely lost your mind there.”

He chuckled awkwardly. “Honestly, if 1% Lifesteal hadn’t been healing me the whole time, I might have.”

“Keep that one for emergencies,” she said. “For everyone’s sake.”

He nodded in agreement. If he relied on that ability again, he’d make a more reasonable sacrifice.

Their fight against the monster horde continued.

The following few days were blended into a constant storm of violence. The tides rose and ebbed—at times, there were barely any monsters to fight, and sometimes, it felt like there was no end to them. 

The ether coins kept accumulating, and Freddy made sure to collect anything with any amount of blood aura attached to it. This was rather simple, given how much blood he was spilling. 

His Sanguine Avenger was usually completely bathed in blood aura by the time he was finished using it, to the point where he could likely sell it as a raw material, and for a good price, at that. He made sure that, any time one of them reached the end of its lifespan, he gave it to the porter for safe-keeping. 

The situation with Drake and Lily was still a little tense, with Drake clearly feeling overwhelmed by everything. Sadly, there was no time for him to process any of it. There was only war and more suffering, with both him and Lily getting injured repeatedly over the course of their participation. Sophia made quick work of their injuries, allowing them to keep going.

The watch on Freddy’s wrist rang every once in a while. The team leaders—Freddy and the other elites—all had access to a sort of private group chat they could exchange information in. At first, nobody really used it, but as the time went on, more and more messages kept coming through. 

REGINALD: 

Hello!
Just thought I’d let you guys know I just killed the fifth snow lion at the third star, so there’s definitely more of them around. If you see one, be careful. Their talent makes their abilities convert hostile essence into ice essence, so unless you want your abilities to be frozen, don’t get hit.

EMILY: 

Don’t get hit, he says.
BAHAHAHAHAHA!
Yeah, no shit, dumbass. 

REGINALD: 

You get what I mean.

PERI: 

Please don’t clutter the chat with irrelevant messages.

EMILY:

Peri I fucking hate you

PERI:

…
Do you have to be like this?

EMILY:

<3
XOXO

While Freddy found the messages amusing, for the most part, he didn’t actually participate in any of the conversations. He felt like he didn’t have anything to say. And honestly, he was nervous to even try. 

So far, nobody had ever called for help with anything. It wasn’t like things didn’t get hairy, but it would take quite the threat for any of these people to need help. Not because they themselves were monstrous, which was true, but also because they had no doubt come along with a number of guards who would make absolutely sure they were never in any real danger.

Freddy had offered to be the last in line for the day off. Which meant he would be off on the fifth day since the arrival of the horde.

And it just happened to be that, just as he was about to get a break, the watch lit up with serious red alerts, from not one, but two of the teams.

GEORGIE:

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

REGINALD:

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

“Looks like we have to help,” Freddy said to the others. 

“What?” Sophia shouted. “Aren’t we supposed to go on a break soon?”

“Yeah…” the scout muttered. “I think our break will have to wait.” He swung his hand and projected what he was seeing with one of his drones. 

Calling this creature a giant was honestly an understatement. Because from what Freddy could see, it was about 200 meters tall. 

And as everyone went quiet, Freddy felt the faint tremors shaking the ground. “Ooooh, yeah… This is going to be rough.”