BLOOD FIEND

“INSOLENCE!!!” one of the ten black-clad figures erupted in unrestrained anger. After all, how could he not? This young brat, who didn’t even look to be twenty yet, had insulted them without restraint. Even if they were holy saints, they’d still get angry. “I’ll skin you alive you---”

“Holy f*cking crap, didn’t you listen to me you piece of shit?!” Lynne interrupted in an even louder voice, his expression extremely grim. “I told you to shut the hell up, you worthless scum. What will you do? Defeat us? Ha ha, you ought to know you aren’t even fit to lick our boots, let alone defeat us. A bunch of untalented Dao Mages and a single, worthless Dao Archmage want to kill three direct disciples of the Principal?”

“Who gave you birth? Who educated you? I need to know so I ought to inform all my friends to evade them by fifty miles!”

“You--” gnashing their teeth in anger, every single one of the black-clad figures still remained silent; in truth, what Lynne said was right. Their leader, the man who abruptly screamed out, was indeed Two Star Dao Archmage, while everyone else was in Dao Magus rank. Disregarding foul-mouthed brat, the girl also seemed to be peak Dao Archmage, while they couldn’t even pinpoint the exact strength of the other guy.

In reality, their group was far from fit to fight against Lynne’s. The reason they were specifically sent, though, is because very few groups were capable of direct confrontation against the trio. As they were among the best in the stealthy attacks, this mission was given to them; however, how could they expect that there was someone so sensitive to changes in space? In the end, with direct confrontation, they stood no chance. Signaling retreat carefully with their eyes, they all began to move backwards slowly.

“You dare?!” cold, demonic – yet at the same time strangely pleasant – voice forced them to halt immediately.

As they looked at the trio, the girl suddenly walked out front. Her robe was fluttering despite the lack of wind, and her hair had suddenly turned crimson, while her eyes were pitch black. Aura of bloodlust enveloped everything around her, suffocating the air itself. She suddenly lifted both of her arms gently, and pricked top of her index fingers with her nails. Droplet of blood fell down, and another one after it – yet, they did not land. They hovered just beneath her hands, converging together.

Hm? Lynne cast a glance at Anna, slightly surprised. Never expected her to be Blood Magus. Even Blood Fiend at that. And you still dare show me a sweet smile… humph…

“B-b-blood---” the leader of the black-clad group stuttered, unable to stand on his feet any longer. He wasn’t shocked or terrified because she was a Blood Magus; after all, plenty people were like her. He was shocked due to her sub-path: Blood Fiend.

The prerequisite to following Blood Fiend sub-path is rather simple: bask in the blood of thousand people. That is, the manual itself for the Blood Fiend sub-path had but a single sentence: Kill one thousand people using only arms, and you shall embark on the path of a Blood Fiend.

Even if majority of Blood Magus sub-paths required some form of cruelty to be followed, while perhaps not the most brutal in quality, it was certainly the most demanding in quantity. In addition, one thousand people was a bare minimum; one could go upwards, as far as they wished. The more people they killed, the thicker their Mana would be. And, looking at this seemingly frail girl before them, her Mana thickness was absolutely outstanding. They didn’t even dare think just how many people she had killed.

However, they didn’t even have time to calculate; two, fist-sized blood spheres were now hovering above her palms. She lightly flicked her fingers, whereupon two spheres exploded upwardly, like a geyser, and then, like river, bolted towards the ten figures. Two rivers coiled around each other on their way there, and struck mercilessly against the people who didn’t even dare move.

As the mass of blood engulfed the diameter of twenty meters around the figures, all life in that area was immediately sucked dry. After the rivers retreated back into the spheres, and back into Anna’s hands, Lynne saw that there wasn’t even a trace left of the ten figures – they were completely, utterly removed from this world.

“… hey,” Lynne suddenly stepped in front of Anna as he flicked his finger slightly, the water buckler disappearing from the air. “You truly are a mighty Princess Warrior. Your light ought to shine across the sky--”

“And you truly are the most shameless bastard I’ve ever met,” although her words appeared harsh, she was actually smiling rather innocently. “Big Brother Lynne, I’ll count on you to protect me in the ancient city.” Motherf… protect you?! I need ten rolls of toilet paper you damn witch!

“Of course, of course,” Lynne continued smiling foolishly, even sticking his tongue a bit; despite his internal demons, his expression remained the same as ever. “How could I not protect such a demone-- beauty like you? I ought to be killed if I don’t!”

“Yaay!” Anna exclaimed, like a little child, as she tightly hugged Lynne’s waist, causing him to frown slightly. Crap, this girl is smarter than I thought… “Then I’ll be counting on Big Brother.”

“Scram kid,” Lynne suddenly changed his tone, as he realized it was pointless to pretend in front of her. “Even my chest is bulgier than yours. How dare you be so intimate with me? Humph, wait for thirty more years before you try to seduce me. Humph.” Lynne kept coldly snorting as he pushed Anna away, taking the lead towards the direction they were heading to before being interrupted.

Anna and Elynal suddenly burst out in laughter, causing Lynne’s face to contort; they definitely planned this! Humph, just you wait, I’ll pay you back tenfold!

Eventually though, as Lynne had absolutely no idea where they were, let alone where they were supposed to go, Anna took the leading role again, with Elynal and Lynne following her. Although the two played with him a little bit, they still didn’t completely calm their hearts; after all, neither of the two actually detected the stealth attack. They were completely unaware for almost three seconds of a battle. Although they knew Lynne wasn’t as simple as he appeared on the surface, they never knew the extent of his prowess – and now, they were even more curious.

While Anna’s spell might have seemed overbearing, it was relatively slow. That was the weakness of nearly all Blood Mages; they required some time for their spells to take full effect. But that was not all; most Mages, regardless of path they took, had this ‘buffer time’ in-between spells. Depending on talent and strength, the time varied, but for most it was between one second and two seconds. Yet, Lynne had cast several spells without even taking a break, one after another; Anna had counted five in total within three seconds.

The reason for the ‘buffer time’ was because congealing Mana successively was nearly impossible. Not only would they need impeccable control over it, extreme purity, but they’d also need to have steel-like internal body. Yet, Lynne had managed to so casually cast five spells, one after another, and the only result was a slightly paler complexion, which was due to sudden burnout of half of his Mana reserves, and not the backlash of five spells. Just who the hell are you? That was the question which bothered them the most, but they didn’t ask. Even amongst Spellweavers, who were notorious for short buffer times, he was simply someone they thought impossible to exist.

Lynne hadn’t a clue about their thoughts, but was rather immersed in his own; he needed to repay the prank the two of them managed to fool him with, but he was out of ideas at the moment.

The night had quickly fallen, and they had barely managed to reach the forests that came after the hills. According to Anna and Elynal, they were still long ways off from the ancient city; after all, it was at the far border of the Kingdom, and they estimated that it might take several months to get there. This caused Lynne to frown; after all, there was roughly half a year left until his father is potentially executed. He doubted he’d able to prevent it, but at least he wanted to be there, to engrave faces of everyone who contributed to that scene, so that, one day, he’ll be able to do the exact same thing to them.

However, he couldn’t voice his thoughts; ever since leaving Edgemaw, Lynne had permanently changed his complexion. Instead of his usual combination of dark, brown hair and blue eyes, with azure braid fluttering at the side, he had completely black, lengthy hair and brown eyes. He had also narrowed his jaw, slanted his eyes slightly, and made his nose completely straight. Although not the perfect picture of handsomeness, he didn’t want to make himself too ugly either.

With his face changed, it was natural he couldn’t just blurt out that he was from Highlind Kingdom, and that his father was to be executed soon. He could, at most, hope they’d be able to wrap things out before the deadline, but there was still the issue of going from the border of Rolyhard Kingdom all the way to where Edgemaw stood, and where the new capital of Elvernheimn Empire stands now.

Regardless, the trio camped in relative silence while the monkey had scuttled off to somewhere. He came back only after the moon had hung high on the sky, and had suddenly started throwing out herb after herb in front of Lynne, licking his lips slightly. With each passing day, Lynne’s skills in Alchemy grew, as did the quality of his pills. The monkey realized that he had found a golden mine, and spared no effort to find the highest quality herbs he could to bring back to Lynne.

“Lynne, you’re also an Alchemist?” Elynal asked, slightly surprised.

“Hm,” Lynne nodded, bitter smile on his face. “Ah, don’t ask me Prince,” as if he expected Elynal’s next question, he immediately answered it. “Hundreds if not thousands of herbs were sacrificed in order to get where I am. It still pains my heart and soul each time I think about it. Had I know how difficult it was back when I started, I’d instead cook this monkey and have him be my dinner…”

“Cook your mother, you rotten brat!” the monkey explosively cursed; damn, these two are deadly combination… yet they don’t even realize it… “Now concoct me some pills.”

“Hm?” both Anna and Elynal exclaimed in surprise. “You brought equipment with you?” Anna asked in the end.

“Equipment, what’s that?” Lynne asked, confused. The monkey suddenly started sweating; crap, I forgot about these two. Crap. Crap. Crap. What should I do now?

“Ha ha,” the duo laughed out loud at Lynne’s question. “What do you mean what’s that? Tools you use to concoct pills, obviously,” Elynal said. “What, were you going to concoct pills and potions with your bare hands.”

“Isn’t that how you do it?”

“EH?!”

“Eh?!”

“Heh…” the monkey bitterly laughed.

“Monkey?” Lynne looked at the little creature who couldn’t be more nervous even if he tried.

“I-I can explain, I truly can explain!” the monkey took a few steps back, sweating profusely. “I-I really wanted to tell you, but-but after I saw you-you were getting better, I-I figured why not see where you go?”

“So… you’re telling me…” Lynne was gnashing his teeth in anger while he suddenly began crying. “That hundreds of those herbs, that I could have sold for endless sum of gold, were wasted because you thought it’d be fun? How could you?!” Lynne suddenly began crying like a little child, his head buried in his arms. “So many coins… wuaaaa~ I could have built a mansion out of gold. Damned monkey, give me back my gold!” He’s insane! He’s gone absolutely insane!!

Chaos emerged immediately. Lynne started chasing monkey, crying profusely, while monkey ran away with terrified expression. On the other hand, Anna and Elynal were chasing after Lynne, still beyond confused. Were there someone to witness that scene, they’d indeed wonder whether they were dreaming or not, as under the glittering moonlight, four figures, pressing three completely different expressions, were running around in circles, chasing each other’s tails.