'This feels similar to that earthworm monster from before.'
Garam looked at the swollen meathead the Bat-Man had become and forced his mind calm.
A wrongness and revulsion, as though discarded trash had been forcibly stitched together.
That was what he sensed from the Bat-Man before him.
"KISHAAAA!"
Perhaps because it had absorbed an additional Blood Point Stone.
Even with one arm severed, it was overflowing with strength.
No.
Not merely overflowing with strength.
'The severed arm is regenerating fast. Did Bat-Men have that kind of regeneration?'
A lost body part regenerating.
Aside from a handful of monsters, there weren't many that could pull off such a feat.
Naturally, the Bat-Man was not among them.
It was true that the Bat-Man was an unusual monster.
But that was solely because of its title as a monster with overwhelmingly strong physical abilities among C-Grades.
Not because it possessed any unusual ability.
'Come to think of it, its presence hasn't changed at all even after absorbing the Blood Point Stone.'
The Bat-Man before him was, likely thanks to the Blood Point Stone it had absorbed, among the very strongest of the already-formidable Bat-Men.
Yet even after absorbing another Blood Point Stone, the presence he felt was not much different from when he first saw it.
Which meant the stone it had just absorbed must have raised its regeneration by a huge margin.
The bulging muscles were most likely for the same reason.
"An orc?"
Why was it?
Though it was an entirely unrelated monster.
he could see an orc overlaid on the Bat-Man now.
"No, let me test it first."
That regeneration was worrying, but if its physical abilities hadn't risen, he still had a chance.
TANG!
Garam's body shot forward like a bullet, bent low.
Closing on the Bat-Man in an instant, Garam swung his axe at it.
Perhaps it felt fear because of the earlier attack.
The Bat-Man moved quickly to dodge the strike, but.
"Not a chance."
FWOOOSH!
The axe that had cut through empty air in vain, or rather the Crimson Flame burning on it, spread outward like an explosion.
"KIEEEEK!"
The Crimson Flame clung to the Bat-Man like a leech and burned.
Perhaps thanks to its raised level, the savagely burning Crimson Flame charred its chest hideously.
The Bat-Man faltered for a moment, but.
SIZZLE—!
its chest regenerated in an instant once again.
It was a little different from the Kobold King.
If the Kobold King had simply taken reduced damage.
the Bat-Man before him took the damage and nullified it completely with regeneration.
If anything, an opponent similar to the Lowest-tier Vampir he had fought before.
The problem was that the Bat-Man's baseline was already incomparably stronger than a Lowest-tier Vampir's.
As if to prove it.
"Heh heh, keep standing there gawking and you'll drop before long."
Along with the man's taunting voice, the Bat-Man slowly opened its mouth.
It was obviously about to attack, and Garam moved quickly to cut it off, but.
-KIYAAAAAAAA!
BOOM—!
A sound wave chilling enough to be called a ghost's wail erupted from the Bat-Man's mouth.
"K-hurgh!"
Though it was only sound, an impact like being hit by a dump truck slammed into Garam.
Pain as if every organ inside him had been rattled loose.
He had raised his axe to block, yet the axe itself shattered instead.
"Cough. You bulked up like some crazed meathead, and all you do is scream?"
Garam spat out a mouthful of blood and barely got to his feet.
'Luckily I can still move, but.......'
His weapon was broken.
"Heh heh, boy. Your weapon's broken, so what more do you think you'll do?"
Seeing the broken axe, the man seemed to sense victory; laughter crept into his voice.
"Beg for your life right here and I might let you off."
Assuming Garam would surrender, the man mocked him with a grin.
Of course, Garam had no such intention.
"It's only just starting. What a deflating thing to say."
Instead, Garam smiled back and stretched out his hand.
He hadn't even used his power properly yet.
Naturally, since his true ability didn't end at mere Crimson Flame.
CRACKLE—!
A blood-red axe formed in Garam's hand.
And a mask settled over his face.
The power of the True Progenitor.
Garam's true power.
"Wh-what in the world. How is it you can use that power?"
Not some counterfeit like a Blood Point Stone, but the genuine power to command blood.
For a man with that, whether he held a weapon hardly mattered.
"Round two, then. You damned bat bastard."
Garam charged the Bat-Man once more and swung the axe.
The Bat-Man quickly took to the air, but.
if it meant to attack with sound waves from a distance, he could simply attack from a distance too.
"Like when I took down Gallos."
He pictures it.
That moment when he had launched crystals of blood while killing Gallos.
CRACKLE—!
FWOOOOSH!
Two blood-red crystals formed behind Garam's back.
But the blood crystals were honed keener and sharper than they had been then.
'I didn't expect to succeed on the first try.'
When he fought Gallos he had used the ability without understanding what was happening.
This was the first time he had formed something out of blood in midair rather than in his hand.
'Though calling them crystals, right now they're shaped like oversized toothpicks.'
Once he layered Crimson Flame over them, they looked like two burning spears.
FWIP!
The two spears flew at the Bat-Man.
"KIEEEEK!"
and buried themselves in its wings.
The Bat-Man hurried to regenerate, but.
"KIEK?"
"You can't, can you."
This was different from the formless flame he had been using until now.
Crimson Flame layered over spears made of blood.
And the Vampir were a race for whom blood was mana itself.
'Which means a spear made from my blood can serve as a substitute for mana.'
In other words, that Crimson Flame would not go out until those blood spears had melted away entirely.
And naturally, it could not regenerate either.
No one had taught him; he simply came to know it as his Lower Skills rose in level.
Of course, he had condensed a fair amount of blood to make them, so the cost in blood was high.
That much was worth bearing.
Not stopping there, more blood spears formed behind Garam's back.
Two at a time was his limit, but.
FWISH!
Fire.
Form again.
Fire.
Form again.
In that manner, no fewer than sixteen spears lodged in the Bat-Man.
However excellent its regeneration, it could do nothing about spears already embedded; he could feel the Bat-Man's lifeline being severed bit by bit.
"Sniff. Haaa."
And since he hadn't coated any spears but the first two with Crimson Flame, the Bat-Man's blood was running down unhindered.
Perhaps because this specimen had absorbed two whole Blood Point Stones.
Blood giving off a scent that stirred his appetite like nothing else.
The Bat-Man hurriedly pulled the spears out and tried to regenerate, but.
regenerating wounds in so many places at once was evidently too much; it was visibly slower than before.
'Now!'
Absorbing blood as he went, he charged at the dying Bat-Man.
The Bat-Man kept firing sound waves all the while, but.
[Lower Skill: Regeneration is used.]
[Lower Skill: Absorb is used.]
[Lower Skill: Hardening is used.]
He pressed on, ignoring them.
Blocking with Hardening, shedding damage with Regeneration.
Repeating the cycle through Absorb.
"KIEK? KIEEK?"
Even the Bat-Man, a monster, seemed unable to comprehend the sight; it tilted its head even as it fired.
At the same time, the man leapt to his feet in alarm.
"What in the— the crazy bastard is dead set on dying!"
No.
The reason he was going this far.
It was not in order to die.
Simply because he could.
Because he could grow stronger, because he could move forward.
Unlike the past eight years, stagnant and hoping only to hold his ground.
Because he had a chance to move toward a better future.
'That's why I'm making the effort.'
THUMP, THUMP
His heart beats.
Violently.
A sensation that was his, and yet not his.
This was the third time.
That he had felt something like this.
His heart hammered, pumping out blood.
Enough that the excessive supply made him imagine his body was heating up.
Just moments before, he had already been feeling the limit of his blood capacity.
Now, instead, he could feel blood filling him rapidly.
[Absorb (C) Lv5 has risen to Absorb (C) Lv7.]
[Hardening (C) Lv5 has risen to Hardening (C) Lv7.]
[Regeneration (C) Lv3 has risen to Regeneration (C) Lv6.]
The Lower Skills' levels climbed in an instant.
Without even time to question it, Garam felt the skills' efficiency rise beyond any comparison with before.
'It's working.'
With firm conviction, Garam tore through the sound waves and reached the Bat-Man.
He swung the axe.
The axe traced a horizontal line.
At the same time, Crimson Flame burst out like a wave.
After swallowing the Bat-Man's whole body in Crimson Flame to slow its regeneration.
"Die!"
he brought the axe down on the Blood Point Stone embedded in its chest.
CRACK!
"KIEEEEK!"
With the Blood Point Stone damaged, it seemed to lose its regenerative ability; the Bat-Man thrashed within the Crimson Flame and was reduced to a pile of ash.
Watching this, the man muttered blankly.
"......Well, I'm fucked. To think he'd bring down a Bat-Man with two Blood Point Stones driven into it."
I was surprised too.
To think this kind of movement was possible without True Progenitor Form.
"Haa, haa."
His breath came up to his throat as though he had stopped mid-sprint, but.
unlike with True Progenitor Form, he could still fight.
[Lower Skill: Absorb activates.]
SHOOOOOP.
He absorbed the Bat-Man's blood scattered across the floor and put himself back in order.
[Skill plunder successful.]
[Sound Wave: Vibration (C) Lv1 acquired.]
Now that the Bat-Man was down, he didn't know whether he had the strength left to take the man too.
'It's clear that guy has a fairly large connection to these abductions.'
Which was why he had to catch him.
Even if he ended up letting him slip away, trying would be better than not.
It was in that very instant.
"Well now, I'd best run for it. Illiana!"
The moment the man shouted.
RUMBLE—!
the earthworm monster, which had lain as though dead far off, closed in on the spot in an instant.
[Are you sure, Pyo Dae-rim? Even if we don't kill him now?]
In that instant, a woman's upper body sprang out from inside the earthworm monster's mouth.
"What the hell......."
Seeing it, Garam knew exactly what the revulsion he had felt while looking at the Bat-Man was.
The revulsion that comes from seeing things joined together that should never be joined.
It was the kind of revulsion of looking at a person with arms attached in place of legs.
"Because there's nothing to be done about it. Killing a 'Vampir' is forbidden without His permission, you see."
[Understood. Glory to Lord Rumania.]
"Aye. Glory to Lord Rumania."
The woman's upper body vanished, and Pyo Dae-rim moved to step into the earthworm monster's mouth.
"See you next time, then."
"Like hell."
A bastard who spoke human language and even knew about the Vampir.
Was he insane enough to let him go?
TAP!
Garam launched himself at the man.
And at the same moment.
WRITHE.
The earthworm monster that had swallowed Garam and carried him here now moved to swallow Pyo Dae-rim.
"Where do you think you're going?!"
"See you next time, then."
CRACKLE—!
Garam reshaped the axe in his grip into a long spear and thrust it at Pyo Dae-rim.
SLICE.
But perhaps the distance was too great.
Or perhaps Garam was too worn out.
The spear he thrust managed only to cut off the hem of the man's robe.
"Whoops!"
Because of it, Pyo Dae-rim did drop the sack of Blood Point Stones he was holding.
"That mark..."
Garam couldn't focus on the sack of Blood Point Stones.
Because he had seen what was under the robe.
On Pyo Dae-rim's face, on his cheek to be exact, a tattoo like tangled thorn vines.
The tattoo of the Saryeon Society.
"See you again next time, then. My name is Pyo Dae-rim. When we next meet, I'll kill you proper."
With that, Pyo Dae-rim vanished beyond a portal.
"Whew."
The cavern, now completely empty.
FLUMP.
Garam's legs gave out from the punishing forced march.
"That was brutal."
An unexpected encounter and battle.
It had certainly been a major threat to Garam.
But this time it was a fight in which he had gained more.
"Hup."
Using the axe as a prop, Garam got to his feet and approached the Bat-Man's remains, now a heap of ash.
Within the ashes, a Blood Point Stone glowed faintly with a red radiance.
[Incomplete Mid-tier Blood Point Stone acquired.]
[The Blood Point Stone is currently in an incomplete state.]
[Absorbing it may cause side effects.]
[Absorbing other Blood Point Stones will stabilize it little by little.]
The stone Garam picked up looked as though another Blood Point Stone had been pressed onto the largest one at its center.
"An incomplete Blood Point Stone. For now, maybe I'll hold off on absorbing it and wait."
Absorbing it would let him begin the First Molting right away, but.
it was the System itself that had said there might be side effects.
Forcing the absorption could genuinely end badly.
Rather than make that kind of gambler's move, simply waiting until it was complete was far more profitable.
"Good. Now I just have to find Carmilla and get out."
The moment Garam tucked the Incomplete Mid-tier Blood Point Stone into his coat and turned to go.
[I finally got out!]
"I finally got out!"
Two figures burst out from opposite directions.
One was Carmilla, and the other Kim Tae-hyeon.
And Kim Tae-hyeon, who looked to have only just made it out of the tunnels, slowly swept his gaze across the inside of the cavern.
"Vampir! So you were the one behind the disappearances!"
He drew his weapon and leveled it at Garam.
Garam stood dumbfounded for a moment, not understanding.
Then he remembered the mask of blood covering his face.
Uh, am I screwed?