Born in Blood



"Ugh, fine!"

Niveh grumbled with a frown, then impatiently gestured to the tight rope binding her.

Liam pursed his lips. Nord and Rin gave him a knowing side glance, but he decided to cut it open anyways.

"You're smart enough not to try anything ambitious."

Niveh gripped her right wrist and let out another scoff of disdain.

"To think someone like you called me heartless."

Nord and Rin let out a brief chuckle at her words. Liam shrugged it off.

"Stay in my room for the time being. Rin, you can begin taking notes now. Make sure not to leave any details out, not even the size of their organs or how they reproduce. We'll head out to the Feeding Grounds soon."

Concern grew on Niveh's face. Just how cruel was this filthy sun-bather?! 

Liam entered the forgery as Nord entered the practice room. 

Nessa stood there with an inquisitive look, and Liam filled her in on what they wanted to do. Instantly, she entered the room with Rin and began enthusiastically asking questions. 

Apparently, Niveh had become a 'friend' to the group.

Liam hadn't completed his daily cultivation and training with the Psionic Rune, and he started with that. 

Three hours passed, and Liam concluded with his quiet cultivation. He finally decided to make use of his beast-will plan, using it to speed up his sea of consciousness expansion. 

'I'm very close… It's time I start with a Rank 3 beast.'

Liam took out a Rank 3 Shadow Hog – a large hedgehog-looking magical beast with dark spines on its back – from his ring and placed it atop the forging table. Dissecting it piece by piece, he began shaping the black spikes into a sharp blade.

Although he wasn't intent on using the beast-will straight away, he would eventually try and turn it into a proper weapon he could use. After an hour, the spikes turned into a shortsword of his liking.

Once he finished with that, he popped a translucent 'coating' pill that helped strengthen his mind walls with temporary protection. Taking the core in hand, he crushed it and absorbed the essence.

Within his mental sphere, large blobs of mental energy started to converge in the center. A mountainous pressure made the transparent barrier tremble, but the coating held on.

Slowly, the hedgehog – which now looked three times its original size – formed fully and let out a deafening screech. 

Liam winced, but didn't wait for its next move. He flashed mid air and began forming countless cuts on its ethereal body, starting with the spikes that looked like they were ready to shoot out at any second.

Now that his consciousness had improved to an amazing level, his ability to weaponize mental energy had naturally gotten better. 

He successfully cut off the spikes one by one using his swords, causing the hedgehog to shriek again and ram the walls with all his might.

With each collision, Liam felt like the inside of his head was being hammered with a nail. 

It made him flinch each time, but his blades hadn't stopped moving.

Eventually, the hedgehog's presence started to regress. Unfortunately, it still had a raging anger that made it uncaring of its body, relentlessly thrashing Liam's mind.

Finally, it was over. Liam had marred the entire hedgehog's body enough that it stopped moving, then added on multiple layering of energy.

A Rank 3 beast-will was vastly, vastly different from its predecessor. Liam could see that its raging remnants were much more potent and so was everything else about it. It was larger too, vibrating with a jarring hymn.

Liam opened his bloodshot eye to reality, only to see Rin opposite him, inspecting his forged item with a child-like curiosity.

"What?" Liam couldn't really be bothered with pleasantries. Speaking made his headache worse.

Rin realized that Liam had opened his eye and quickly put the blade back down. 'I'm done with the questioning.'

Rin's pensive gaze lingered on the forged item for a split second before she left.

Liam carefully entered back into his room, vigilant for any crimson threads. There weren't any.

Niveh casually browsed through his things like they were her own. He slapped away her pale hands, receiving a sharp glare.

"Stop acting like a child. You're 33 years older than me."

That seemed to offend the vampire even more, but she was more than shocked to learn how young Liam was. 

"You're healed up now, so I'll take a bit of your blood." 

Liam took out his shortsword, making the girl sigh. Although she'd gotten away from one torture, she'd jumped headfirst into another.

Uncaringly, Liam made a long vertical cut across Niveh's arm, collecting every drop of her blood in a large glass potion. It looked much purer compared to before, as the girl had time to rest and let her Nexus do the work.

"What are you going to do with it, weirdo?" Niveh insulted in child-like fashion. She was surprisingly an idiot.

Liam ignored her and inspected the glistening blood with the King's Eye. 

He'd have to study it keenly if he wanted to improve his Blood Weaving – even learning how to enhance the ink would allow for better links and meanings.

Absorbing it into his bloodstream was also on the table, but he would have to make sure it wouldn't do any harm.

"Once we relocate the base, start showing me how your Blood Art works."

He stored the potion in his ring before shifting his gaze to Niveh.

"Bring us to the Feeding Grounds. We'll start heading towards the Citadel now."

Niveh grew stern, but agreed nonetheless. 

Gerald and Nessa were just about done with fixing up the remaining wreckage of the base. Thankfully, its inscriptions weren't damaged.

Liam gathered everyone outside, and Gerald placed his hand on a certain part of the base wall, imbuing it with 'Ora'.

The base started to shrink just as fast as it was built.

From there, a week passed as the group arduously traveled across the mountain chain and took short breaks for cultivation and food in between.

Liam couldn't help but raise his brows in shock as he and the rest finally made it over the mountain.