Quietly stalking behind, he kept a close eye on all four humans and their various weapons. One wore a sword at his waist, with another holding a halberd at all times. Most worrisome was the person with an axe and shield, perhaps the only one capable of blocking his attacks.

As for the final one, he stayed at the back but didn’t seem to have any weapons. What stood out was the beaded necklace around his neck with a second one in hand. Having mana equal to the other three, he didn’t really stand out besides lacking a weapon.

Guessing this might be a relatively rare Cleric, he absolutely wanted their body. As for the rest, he didn’t have any high hopes for their bloodlines, or securing multiple corpses in time.

However, such a Cleric couldn’t have a strong healing ability at their level, in either case he believed it best to kill the man with a shield first. And to ensure the kill, a minimum of a Glacier bolt to the face was required. Then a Wind blade storm to cut through the armour of the others to leave them bleeding out and focusing on escape over offence.

For now, he just followed while a short distance away, downwind of them to avoid scent travelling over, and waited until a sufficient gap revealed itself for a whispered Glacier bolt. It didn’t take long until he finally found them all focusing elsewhere to a well enough degree.

Still camouflaged, he cast Glacier bolt, using the wind to cover his whispers somewhat and hoping distance weakened the rest. Fortunately, the spell was short and it formed rapidly, a blade of ice hanging in the air.

He precisely aimed for his target’s neck. And with a momentary adjustment, fired it…

But at the same time, the Cleric reached his hand out to push the shield-bearing man without restraint. A heavy shove caused him to trip over a step and stumble, looking backwards with a glare. His annoyance immediately morphed in the next few seconds though.

A sharpened chunk of ice smashed into the ungloved hand which pushed him, crushing its bones and dripping blood onto the snow around them. Enduring such pain, the bead-holding one actually kept quiet and focused on his surroundings. At the same time, everyone reacted to the sudden attack, drawing weapons and standing towards its source.

A bright light already swept over the place a hatchling stood just moments ago, the misconception nearly proved fatal. This absolutely could not be a Cleric!

No way a healer possessed such keen senses, not at their strength at least, so he knew it had to be another rare class!

Unwilling to give up, he decided to take advantage of this, but for now he didn’t want to alert them to his true identity. Using Snow blade storm, he did his best to cover the casting but he feared that they actually heard his voice.

And clearly they did as part of a growl-like sound managed to reach them before completing the spell, they turned to face his general direction but with Rapid camouflage a flash of light alone couldn’t reveal his location.

But then the spell completed and blades of ice formed in the air around him, everyone retreated to block whatever possible and protect their exposed flesh. But this attack purposely avoided the shield-bearer, some still hit to make it seem that the spells came from a creature lacking greater intelligence.

And while blocking one or two Snow blades felt possible, the number extending to twenty meant that several hit their bodies. Fortunately, for them at least, some thicker leather beneath their already hefty fur and fabric layers blocked most shivs.

Less fortunately, their arms and hands received some degree of cuts. But the most unlucky had to be the one who received a blade to his cheek, penetrating through the supple flesh and only stopping due to his closed jaw…

The Swordsman sweated in realisation that he might have died if not for such a small thing. From impact alone his teeth ached, and he didn’t hesitate to pull the shard out with a grunt. In this weather, nothing is more dangerous than allowing the cold to leech heat away, a bit of bleeding is easy to close up in comparison.

As they looked in the general area to find the spellcasting creature, none of them expected him to activate a series of Jump seals and move over the top of them. Jump seals being soundless made such a thing far easier, however, falling on snow is far less quiet. Landing further away, it seemed unreasonable that the high fall could have alerted anyone. And yet, that keenly-sensed man somehow heard him!

Before the lantern could swing round, another Jump seal allowed him to retreat further, finally far enough that no one could make out any detail. Licking his lips, the presence of such a bloodline was akin to a magnet. Something far too irresistible.

That lantern was just far too annoying though, completely ruining his ability to sneak attack them. So, how better to attack than to block their sight?

From a far distance, he cast Darkness on their bodies to create a mist of light absorption, it wasn’t a huge patch by any means but the four clustered men naturally fell within it. And now the only possible sight for the group was mana sense, something none of them possessed. The band of four was forced together at that moment, unable to see one another or the beam from their lantern.

Without a mage they could not easily overcome magic, especially since none knew how their enemy suddenly blinded them, but that didn’t make any of them useless. Throughout the darkness, all four swapped from minor hand signs to simply talking, discussing strategies in fast, hushed voices.

“The effects?”

“No clue, but continue blocking.” Each of them held up their weapons, trying to cover as much of their bodies as possible for whatever could arrive.

But when the man holding beads felt his team at his back a question arose, which he asked immediately, “Are we all beside one another?”

“Yes…” the halberd carrier replied with an added moment of concern. Given the enemy’s spells, why were they making a small condensed target? All four rushed forward to separate, just barely escaping the range of a flaming cone from one side.

But that meant one man took the blow, and it was none other than the keenest, most dangerous, of the lot. Almost touching the stabilised Cone of fire, he tried to dodge but physically couldn’t move away fast enough, his chest taking the brunt of the compressed flames.

Flesh sizzled and turned to crisp, charred strips in just seconds, blood boiled and his heart’s inner chambers were unable to take the extreme heat. For the first few moments he tried to withstand it, but after several seconds of intense flame came to an end the man lacked the ability to do anything but collapse face-first into snow.

[Killed Level 13 Monk! Received 15% EXP]

So this human was actually a Monk?

He actually had heard of it, and it explained the beads they wore. But now lying dead on the ground, the others soon came to realise the blinding effect was instead a shroud covering the environment, escaping from this supposed target. Now only three members remained.

“It’s the fucking dragon! Just RUN!” All saw and felt the burst of fire moments ago, more than understanding of what creature in such an environment could cast fire magic. In such darkness they were no worse than inside the shroud!

Without a moment to spare, all three moved their mana internally to activate skills and ran off. He might have been capable of following for a short distance, but such a thing was pointless, he only really cared for the Monk’s body. And with it at hand, he now had to deal with blood seeping from its broken skin, but that all fortunately dried up as the vessels beneath sealed under such heat.

With the smell of burnt flesh filling his nose the whole time, he eventually pulled the corpse a fair distance away before burying it using Water control. He doubted any human could find the two foot grave he made just to temporarily store it, and with such surety, he returned home to eat and sleep.

Killing humans was just as much of a struggle as he envisioned.

Either way, he could evade them easily enough, and if things continued as is, he saw no reasonable threats to his way of life. Just gather more bloodlines and move to a stronger place once the hunters dispersed, then rinse and repeat the process.

It really couldn’t be easier than this… He still needed to figure out what to do after that step, but it was one of many things which only mattered when reaching it.

After finding the battle such a pain, he simply didn’t interact with humans when possible. The next morning he finally tried cooking chunks of meat in blood with field roots, but the results weren’t any better. While the meat still felt digestible, which really stretched the definition there, nothing about the even thicker blood felt right. Whether from smell, taste, appearance, or even its mana.

Rather than just gag from taste, he also wanted to spit it out the coagulated fluid running down his throat.

The only solution was to melt some snow into the remaining blood and let it flow a bit more, finally finishing the meal with his tail cone to withstand the taste. What else could he do?!

Giving up to the horrible fate, he could only continue making progress through the sheer quantity of blood at a rapid rate, having finished about two-thirds of the total in nine days. As for meat… he may or may not have barely finished a single leg in all that time.

However, as the meat simply didn’t freeze he became more worried everyday about its remaining time. Surely there’s no way it can rot in such temperatures, even if not frozen.

* * *

The next day didn’t seem to have any gossip about a group finding the dragon, or anyone dying. He chose to believe that the group kept it a secret to try and kill him themselves. Or perhaps they sold the information?

What exactly humans do didn’t always make sense to him. And another day spent deep into the battlefield revealed more bones for his growth, on this day also locating another two of those bone balls. In total, he came across ten of them, some closer together whilst other occasions took days between finding one. And while it’d taken ages, he came close to completing the bloodline.

[Consumed Warbone Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 99%]

Spiritcaller also made some progress, but its slow speed and relatively high rarity dropped its value far too much. Gathering bones for an incompletable bloodline made no sense to him, even if its potential involving magic were so much higher. From time to time, some Gelid mongrel bones also appeared, but even after so long he only reached 36%.

He still didn’t understand why such weak bones appeared in lower quantities than the clearly useful ones, surely they either should’ve all broken down due to time or consumption? Also, why were the levels of bloodlines so insanely varied here? Gelid mongrels were incomparably weak, but the powerful Kandir giants actually fell alongside them, this battle still made no sense.

Questions aside, he took the bone home and prepared for another assimilation, first filling his stomach in preparation for a long sleep.

[Consumed Stormfrost lord wolf bloodline! Assimilation progress 54%]

Halfway done, and close to finishing the blood, it was both a blessing and hellish pain for the body to be so large. More mass meant he could drink more before any bloating occurred, which just meant having to drink more blood. But for tonight, his happiness came in the form of a giant bone larger than his head and neck combined.

Due to his growth, those parts approached half a metre in length, almost the size of his newborn self.

Crushing the bone required a small bit of work, and before long he vacuumed up the pieces one by one, watching the Nexus’ prompts stack up one after another until the finality arrived.

[Consumed Warbone Kandir giant bloodline! Assimilation progress 100%]

A dam exploded, his body thrown violently to the ground as it lost control and burnt up in a powerful force beyond any prior experience. However, it wasn’t merely a sensation as parts of his wafer scales blackened and body melted slightly.

Within, he felt no pleasure, just pure fiery pain as his insides revolted and threatened to seep out of his scales, nothing responding to his attempts to retake control. Not that those attempts lasted long.

His eyes turned black and lost their focus, several Nexus prompts blowing up in front of him. But none of it mattered as the spots of charred scales grew larger and as feared, some gooey liquid escaped from the soft spots.

Without any mind of his own to react, a powerful force like no other descended into the room suppressing the changes within him. The burning within came to a slow stop and the liquid parts slowly turned solid once more, his scales still blackened but no longer being burnt away outside his control.

A weak sense returned to his body, a prominent pain which blocked any attempts to move or just look around. Opening his ice-cream covered eyes, life returned as they transformed from a frightening coal black to white vanilla. Consciousness finally returned soon after.

And while the burning pain remained, his mind raced with a realisation that he’d be in a horribly weak state if not for the Nexus intervening there.

Not exactly dead… But whether or not he could walk in the coming week remained unknown.

While it took a while to calm down, the heated sensation eventually quelled and he collapsed immediately into sleep. Too exhausted, he didn’t dream, and the hours upon hours of rest felt like little more than a minute. His eyes opened to an incomparable aching from everywhere, even parts of his body he’d never actually felt before.

Worst of all had to be the throbbing headache though, but he still said, “Nexus, show all prompts.” Looking at the five in his vision one by one. The most recent being an assimilation completion.

[Assimilated Warborne Kandir giant bloodline! 5 new bloodline directions potentially available.

Title Upgrade Mission 1 has been complete]

After such a painful and tedious assimilation process, he found it joyful that it paid off bountifully. It had taken a while, but he finally assimilated 20 bloodlines as well. However, he began reading the other four prompts. As he went through them, the smile faded and was replaced with shivers down his spine. Metaphorical spine that is…

[Assimilation process accelerated unexpectedly, internal overheating occurring]

[Uncontrolled assimilation observed. Heating is burning your MP and HP for fuel]

[E21: Valuable user’s incapacitation poses threat to Nexus growth

Solution: Intervene and stabilise assimilation process]

[Heating reduced to manageable levels, situation is stable]

“I overheated? What happened during it?” He knew that something began burning him alive, but not to an extent where the Nexus actually intervened. This sort of thing happened once in an astral moon.

[Assimilated bloodline produced results several times greater than anything prior, your body could not withstand such power and burned itself away to maintain stability in front of the bloodline]

He mostly understood the implication of this, but just to make sure asked anyway. “So, if I assimilate a bloodline too far above me… I could just instantly die?”

[Likely]

That wasn’t absolutely frightening at all.

So he now needed to massively improve his ability to resist stronger bloodlines, fortunately he already had a clear direction for this. When he first started off, the snow gibbon almost knocked him out. But now he could handle plants and creatures stronger than it without trouble.

Only a few things changed since then. His growth and bloodline were the two biggest, meaning increases to one should reduce this danger. It might even be that both played a part, in which case he needed evolutions and life essence en masse.

Still, this information meant holding off on completing the Stormfrost wolf, it was unknown if the Nexus would help again after providing a sufficient warning.

And so, he avoided leaving the house while recuperating.

Name

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Pure mana Ice-cream

HP

66%

MP

100%

Level

15

EXP

30%

Unallocated Stat Points: 12

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

3

Growth

15

Magic

10

Mutation Rate

5

His MP quickly refilled as always, but the slower HP regen made it clear just how bad the minor injuries were. With parts of his insides a horrible mush and large spots of black, charred wafer all over… it was entirely possible that a slightly stronger bloodline would have outright killed him!

Hopes of devouring unimaginably strong bloodlines vanished, but it reminded him of his place once more. Once becoming a youngling and evolving again, there was no reason for the stormfrost wolf’s bloodline to harm him… And then he’d sweep through all the other winter’s hope trees.