June 15th 2018.

  Not even slowing down Helo continues to run up the mountain path. He still finds the view to be one of the most peaceful he has ever seen. Unfortunately for him he is in a rift, that is filled with goblins, about to collapse, taken over by traitors to his friends, and is controlled by vampires that like to use human sacrifice. But other than those few things, this is a beautiful rift.

  Killing another man who is following behind the other, he finishes him in a similar fashion to the previous man. An aura strike to gauge the man’s strength and stagger him. Followed by a quick thrown dagger and finished in close range. Helo doesn’t know much about the system or how things work. Exp is one of those things that is most confusing, but fighting like this makes him feel like he gaining extra experience for being in line with his class. He can feel as he slowly gets closer to level 39.

  Reaching the town proper Helo can hear as people are starting to spread out from the upper most house where to multi-racial orgy was taking place. Sticking to the edge of town, all Helo wants to do is exit the rift and call Akira. Someone needs to know that they are using blood sacrifice and that they are in league with a group of vampires.

  Keeping to the shadow and using his aura to conceal himself, Helo is able to quicky make it to the upper part of the town. By now he can see the tear in space where he can exit the rift. Issue is that it is being guarded by a mixed group of goblins, kitsune, dryads, and vampires.

  At first Helo thought that the other group, that was wearing red, was made up of humans. Now he knows just how wrong he was. The land around the tear in reality is cleared of trees and it has two paths leading up to it. One leads inside the mountain where the goblins spawn, the other is from the hot spring town. Realizing that he is going to have to fight his way free, Helo takes a step back into the shadows and lets ‘Bloodline Awakening’ fade away.

  Instantly he stumbles and has to grab the wall. He can feel the strain that his increased attributes were holding back, finally hit him all at once. He has been in this situation before and now he regrets letting his boosting skill go. He thought that with his new title and higher bloodline percentage he might have been okay.

  Having to concentrate to keep his presence concealed, Helo groans unto the void of the darkness surrounding him as he waits to stabilize. It takes almost a minute of forced breathing, but eventually he feels good enough to move. It’s at this point that Helo can finally start to think about what he has seen. He always wondered if he was a vampire. The system said he was, but once his necklace fully awakened it switched to ‘Redacted’. Now he has an actual vampire to base himself off of.

  Unfortunately, in the end he still isn’t sure. He has no blood related skills, and over time he has realized that it isn’t as much draining blood, as he is draining vitality, and when someone dies, he drains their life force. It isn’t enough for him to say yes or no. He knows that many species can have all sorts of different affinities or mutations.

  Humans are a great example, they are pretty basic on the scale of power, but they can adapt to almost anything. Vampires have a bloodline with an affinity with blood. But it doesn’t mean that a vampire can’t also have their own affinity for something different. At the same time there can be multiple kitsune. One might have an illusion affinity; the other might be ice or fire.

  So, he might be a variant of vampire that is different from what he just saw. But still, it isn’t enough. Turning around Helo goes to find a lone creature to kill, sapient, sentient, or wild; he doesn’t care. He just needs to drain their vitality like some kind of adrenaline shot.

  Using his nose and heading into the forest it only takes a minute for him to find a wild boar that is wondering the mountain side. The boar is tier 2 but it is an extremely basic variety and has zero chance of spotting Helo. Sneaking up behind the boar, Helo climbs a nearby tree and drops onto its head.

  Striking downward with a blade wrapped in dark energy Helo is surprised as the kukri only pierces into the skull a few inches. With wide eyes Helo makes eye contact with the now enraged beast and is brutally tossed to the side.

  He wanted to lower the strain on his taxed body, so he only attacked with his kukri and his bloodline. Getting up from the ground with an aching back he realizes something that he should have already known. His bloodline isn’t infallible. It is powerful, but there are things that are stronger out there. Even when he is attacking something that he views as easy prey, the right mix of abilities and spells could easily stop him.

  Using his aura on the beast he can feel what he assumes is a hint of earth mana that has gathered under its skin. “It is reinforcing itself.” Helo says while holding up his blade. To his surprise there is a slight chip on the edge near the tip. “I need to get around to enchanting you. Your only a tier 2 basic weapon.” Helo says to the blade.

  Getting back into the fight he treats it like all his battles with the giant rats in the dungeon. He fought them by constantly bleeding and crippling them. After starting to take the monster seriously, Helo used everything but ‘Bloodline Awakening’.

  In the end it took him only a about two minutes to kill the best. Now he is draining as much vitality as he can from the beast blood and from what is seeping into the air. Before he can finish his instincts tell him to move.

  Ducking his head and rolling back Helo can hear as a blade parts the flesh in front of him. The vampire Rogar is standing next to the boar and is holding some kind of thin dueling saber with an extremely ornate handle and guard.

  Turning back the vampire looks over his shoulder and lets out a sharp smile. “Ehehheku, what a unique concealment technique you have. I never would have found you if you weren’t out here. Never ever make such a bloody mess when you’re hiding from vampires.” The man gives off another creepy laugh.

  The vampire disappears in a blur of pure speed and Helo has trouble tracking his movement. The thin blade stabs through his ribs and gets pulled back before he can even react. The vampire is back at its previous location and is licking the blood from the blade.

  “Mhmmmm. Interesting. What are you? I saw you out here and thought you were a vampire. But no… id have recognized your blood. This, this is different. Tastes powerful, but… Mhmmm.” The man tilts his head and takes a sniff of the blood. “You’re still working on awakening it. Mhmmm Heheheku.”

  Activating ‘Bloodline Awakening’ Helo gets ready to run. As his stats get a boost he can feel as the reality around him is starting to destabilize. It is making a ring of destruction that is slowly inching inward toward the rift exit. Wanting to run Helo needs a few more seconds to acclimate to his skill.

  Thankfully the vampire is insane enough to continue talking even after Helo’s increase in power. “Ohhhhhhho, there it is. What is that? I bet your blood tastes soooo good now.” The vampire blurs forward, but this time Helo can track him.

  Dodging left, Helo is barely nicked by the blade. Turning on his heel, he starts to run back toward the exit. He has drained enough vitality from the boar to boost him for at least twenty seconds. So instead of concealing himself, Helo is tearing through the woods faster than ever before.

  The vampire is just as fast as him, if not faster. But with Helo’s aura backed by his amazing perception out at full power and his powerful instincts, he is able to keep just ahead of the vampire.

  He didn’t go far from the town, but the trip back is filled with tens of clashes. The insane vampire is changing from a ringing laugh to its deep voice as it enjoys itself. Helo can tell that the vampire has instincts that are similar to his own. But the vampire is extremely sadistic. Not letting up for a second.

  Blocking a thin disk made from blood, Helo would be dead if it wasn’t for his aura. Actually, he would be dead if the vampire had an aura to combat his own. But as things stand his aura is able to weaken the mana infused blood enough to block or dodge the strikes. At the same time the balls of vitality and mana are easy for his aura to pick up. They shine like a beacon in his senses.

  Scanning with an aura isn’t like looking at something. It is like having your eye closed, looking through touch, but having to feel through clothing and some kind of extension. All this makes aura tricky to view with. With training you can learn to get better at it. But for things like vitality or mana, they shine brighter in Helo’s aura.

  Jumping up to a branch of a tree, a red disc slices through the truck below him. Now standing on the branch of the toppling tree, Helo uses it to springboard himself forward and onto the next tree.

  In the air he is forced to spin and block a disc from below. The block throws of his balance enough that he is now heading for the truck a tree in front of him, instead of landing on top of the next branch. With catlike instincts and agility, Helo somehow twists in air and lands on the truck of the tree upside down, feet first, with a clawed hand holding himself in place.

  Rogar appears on the trunk below and is expecting to find Helo disorientated from striking the tree. As the vampire stabs forward, Helo uses his planted hand to flip over Rogar’s head. Landing feet first on the branch that Rogar jumped to, Helo spins on the branch and slashes out with his knife wielding hand.

  The maneuver takes the vampire by surprise and Helo is able to draw a small line of blood on his chest. “Heheku, you think this cut will stop me.” Rogar laughs, he is looking at the child, and he is riddled with cuts and gashes all over from Rogar’s attacks.

  Helo just smiles and drops off the branch. In the air he gouges the tree with his clawed hand and plants his feet. Pushing off Helo makes a break for the light that he can see in the trees. This is the clearing with the rift.

  Rogar is about to follow, but slowly his body and spirit start to still. The affliction starts from the cut on his chest and seeps into his limbs. He can feel his regeneration slow, his skills fizzle out and his own body is unresponsive.

  This is the bloodline powered ‘Forced Skill’. He doesn’t use it often because the skill is unusable for about twenty-four-hours after the skill is used. But the stronger version not only paralyzes the body, but it also strikes at the spirit as well.

  The skill only grazed Rogar, and didn’t strike on a vulnerability, so it isn’t at full power. But it is a powerful skill and is enough to take effect and stall him. Even if he is somewhere past the early tier 2’s.

  In one last act of anger before his body is completely slowed for a second or two, Rogar pushes back the affliction. With all his will focused on pushing out the affliction that has taken over his body and blood, Rogar touches on his aura for the first time.

  He doesn’t have the control to fight the affliction, but with a massive use of energy and the fury of a failed hunt, Rogar uses one last skill. With a whisper he says “Wall of Blood.”

  Behind him Helo can feel within his own aura as a small bubble is formed around Rogar. He is quickly out of Helo’s twenty-one-and-a-half-meter aura range. But in that moment, he can feel as his skill is fought against. Then like an ember that is slowly going out, the bubble dissipates.

  As the bubble is rapidly shirking Helo gets more than his aura range away and his full skill takes effect. But not before he can hear a whispered skill.

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  A second later a wall of blood rises up right inside the tree line and blocks off his escape. Quickly creating a ‘Dark Blade’, Helo strikes at the wall with his own aura. The mana within the conjuration starts to slowly dissipate and the wall is gradually weakened.

  Shrinking his aura down to a small point in front of him, Helo is only a few seconds away from the massive wall. He could wait for it to go down, or go around it. But the five minutes before the sub-space started breaking is well over. Helo even considered turning around to kill Rogar. An enemy with an aura means they are a shoe in for tier 3. But he doesn’t have the time. He just has to hope that the breaking reality will kill the vampire.

  Helo isn’t even putting much focus within his own aura senses. Fractures are slowly starting to appear all around him. They are being created from behind him and cracking their way toward the rift. Like a foot stomped down on a sheet of ice.

  Two seconds away from blood wall, Helo says “Dark Grasp.” Holding out his hand he grabs the blade that was formed from his shadow within his wispy mental hold. In his empowered vision he can see as a wispy hand made from swirling purple mental energy is surrounded by a monochrome black film of dark energy.

  Diving off a tree branch and inches before he makes impact with the wall, the dark blade shoots forward with a grunt of mental exertion from Helo. The blade impacts right in front of Helo’s fingertips as he dives forward. It strikes right where Helo was focusing most of his aura. At first nothing happens as the film of dark light that is surrounding the blade is quickly eaten through.

  As that happens, the wall in that location loses most of its affinity and intent. It is no longer blood mana that was formed into a wall. But mana with a hint of blood affinity that just so happens to be in this formation. With that Helo’s aura is able to weaken the mana further. An instant later the knife strikes the wall and just manages to pierce the tip through.

  Striking that location next, Helo punches into the wall and can feel some resistance. For a moment he thinks that it wasn’t enough. It is only a moment, then his shoulder strikes with the weight of his entire body behind it. At this, the wall starts to crack just like the rift is. Then before Helo can start to doubt himself further, the entire wall starts to break apart, with his location as the focal point.

  Shooting through the wall, Helo hits the ground and rolls into the clearing. Landing on his face and sliding a few feet he is about to push himself up, but he gets a moment of warning and rolls to the right. An arrow lands in the location where his head was just at. Jumping up Helo reasserts his aura and for the first time, that isn’t practice with Micah or Akira, Helo’s aura finds resistance.

  His eyes are instantly drawn to the wielder of this aura. It feels vile and bloody. Like an infected wound or a horribly cursed body. The individual is a tall man with black hair and black eyes. He is wearing a long red cloak and has some kind of suit underneath. Making eye contact Helo can feel a hint of familiarity in the man. The kind of familiarity that speaks of similar places within the food chain. Helo is an apex predator in the wild, and the man is a hunter of humans.

  Blinking quickly Helo uses that second to get a feel for his surroundings. The vampire isn’t trying to push back Helo’s aura; he is just maintaining a bubble around himself. With this Helo can get a quick view. He landed close to the rift, there are people surrounding him on all sides and most of them are aiming some kind of weapon at him.

  The vampires starts to speak as they make eye contact. “Well, well, well, just a little hunter that came out to play. Unfortunately… Shoot HIM!”

  Helo doesn’t let the man finish speaking before he dives through the rift. All around him the world is filled with spells, skills, and projectiles. Helo ends up taking a few hits and before he enters the rift he can hear the vampire yelling. “Chase him down! He knows too much!”

  Tumbling free of the rift, Helo quickly gets to his feet but falls after a step. Looking down he can see his leg is pierced through by an arrow. His back and sides are also riddled with different wounds. Burns from fire or lighting, arrow holes, or flesh missing from mana explosions. Helo can even feel as his body starts to fight against itself. Someone hit him with some kind of debuff.

  Knowing his time is limited Helo quickly comes to a decision. He has finished his goal, all the rifts in the area are closed. Now he has to get back to the town. There are tier 2 fighters there that can fight the people coming after him.

  But first he has to get there. Not feeling particularly excited about the few mile trip he now must take with a mass of enemies trying to kill him. Helo knows his first goal is to heal his wounds. Using his new title’s ability to interchange is physical and mental energy, for an increase in cost of course. Helo starts pulling the energy from his mind and spirit into his core.

  At the same time, he is limping his way to the wall that is surrounding the rift. He needs to get out of sight before the people come through. They were all surrounding him and he knows that they will be coming any second.

  His mental energy is drained at a prodigious rate and Helo can feel his mind start to slow. Finally getting to the other side of the wall Helo ducks down and hopes that he will at least get a few seconds to start healing. Entering meditation, he goes through the process of pushing his mental energy into his physical channels.

  He isn’t exactly sure how the process works, but thanks to the title ‘Yin-Yang Balance, it just does. Somehow his energy center has a neutralizing effect on the energy and makes it more pliable and willing to change. All Helo really knows at this point is he is draining a massive amount of energy.

  It takes a few seconds for his physical energy to refill and then overflow. As his physical energy overflows Helo can feel as his bloodline’s dark affinity is replaced by his empowering life affinity. At that same time his body starts to rapidly recover.

  Outside his body people are starting to pour out the rift. They are all yelling taunts toward Helo and trying to find him. It only takes a few seconds for someone to notice the trail of blood. Well, fresher blood. “He went this way!” A man yells out.

  “Let’s follow him!” “Get him!” “Don’t let him get away!” A chorus of yells sound out and Helo starts to get worried he will get caught. Once the process of converting his energy started, he was able to half focus on pushing his energy and also focus on what he is hearing. Due to his healing state, he isn’t able to conceal his presence and he is worried that they will have a way to track him. The dryads might be able to sense life energy, the vampire’s blood, or the kitsune’s with their stronger senses.

  Thankfully for him nobody has started doing that yet. To his relief he has yet to hear Rogar or that vampire with an aura. If they were out of the rift he would have already been found. “Wait!” Another voice yells out. This is an early tier 2 dryad male. “That trail is going away from the nearby town. He was injured; it’s probably a diversion.”

  Helo almost wants to sigh in relief as he can hear everyone stop and look back, but he knows if he does, they will definitely hear him. The people are standing directly on the other side of the wall. “We should spread out in a half circle from the direction of the tracks. If he cut back along the way, then we can find him.”

  Helo can hear as they all sound their agreement. It only takes a few seconds for the dryad to instruct the people on where to go. Before they spot him, Helo is finally done healing himself. He had to use almost all his remaining mental energy reserves, but he is now fully healed. As the golden energy was rapidly leaving his body it even fought back the effects of whatever debuff he had sustained.

  In the last second of his life affinity being active Helo dashed from his hiding spot behind the wall at an increased speed. In a single leap he makes it the ten-feet into the tree line.

  Behind they all see the outline of a shorter man appear, then he is wrapped in a swirl of darkness and disappears into the trees. The dryad yells out, “Get him!”. Then Helo can hear as a multitude of footsteps chase after him.

  Fighting off a minor headache, Helo is doing his best to run with his normal grace and fluidity. But his body and mind are stressed, his mind is almost out of energy, and he has been fighting for almost a day. He left as night had just started and now the sun is high up in the sky casting long shadows through the forest.

  Ducking under a fallen tree, Helo almost stumbles afterward from a hole in the ground. Releasing ‘Bloodline Awakening’ it is doing more harm than good by this point. He is tired and it is only increasing the pain he is in.

  His speed dramatically slows, but at the same time his headache starts to lesson, he also starts to gain back his mental energy, if at a reduced rate. Weaving through the trees, Helo can hear as a pair of individuals are about to overtake him. They are on his left and right, and closing fast. He can hear the foot falls as they travel through the forest.

  Stepping left around a tree, Helo has to jump and dive over an arrow that erupts from the tree. The shot wasn’t even aimed at him; it was aimed to force him to avoid or run into the shaft that is now sticking from the tree. Hitting the ground shoulder first and rolling up, Helo lets out a slight smirk. The plan to bait him into a dodge would have been great, if Helo wasn’t already aware of them. He could hear as the person on the left stayed level with him, and the one on the right ran ahead.

  Helo stays low and rolls a second time. The sword strike that was meant to take his head off swings over his head harmlessly. It does have the effect of knocking Helo’s hood off and revealing his grin. Jumping up after his second roll he leads with his dagger in front of him. Stabbing the sword wielder under the chin, Helo lifts the man off his feet and into the tree behind him.

  He steps right around the tree that the sword wielder’s corpse is now sliding off. Behind him two arrows strike the left of the trunk in quick succession. With this quick opening strike Helo can’t help but think, One down… I’m actually not sure how many to go.

  Now running at a reduced speed due to his boosting skill ending and his own fatigue. Helo is doing his best to stay ahead of his pursuers. Many of them are higher level than him, and those that are agility focused are easily able to keep pace with him or even overtake him.

  The fact that he continually has to weave between trees to avoid arrows that are aimed at his head, isn’t helping him much either. Rolling right he avoids an arrow only to almost get caught by an earth wall. Somewhere behind him a mage was able to cast a spell with enough skill to set it in his path.

  Not breaking his speed Helo jumps up and onto the truck of a tree, from the truck he grabs a branch and swings himself over the wall of earth. As he is falling down toward the other side, but before he has fully cleared the top of the earthen wall, Helo gets a strong feeling of danger.

  Spinning in the air Helo avoids having his heart blown out the front of his chest by inches. Instead, his right arm is now crippled. An arrow struck him in the shoulder and managed to pierce though. It isn’t often that Helo curses due to his stat distribution. But in moments like this, he hates how low his endurance is. What he hates even more is that due to his now worthless right hand he dropped his kukri and doesn’t have the time to get it.

  His own spin and the arrow strike make his landing go from a gymnasts getting tens all across the board, to hitting the ground with a “THUD”. Landing back first, all the air is driven from his lungs. On the other side he can hear as the mage chants to lower his wall spell. To the left and right his pursuers are catching up.

  He had a decent lead on everyone, but now they are all right on his back. Stumbling to his feet, he starts running again. At the same time the wall falls down toward Helo and hits the ground. Almost tripping again due to his uneven footing, Helo manages to keep running. To his left a man that would have had zero chance of keeping up with Helo steps forward and yells. “TAUNT.” From his body a red incorporeal wave shoots forward and envelops Helo.

  Gritting his teeth in frustration he tries to fight the effects of the skill. But the skill is insidious in how it works. He can feel a deep revulsion and anger build up within his mind. The man is suddenly the person he wants dead most in all the worlds. The effect is so sinister, and his need to kill the man so great, that Helo even reactivates ‘Bloodline Awakening’. The boosting skill sweeps through his body and makes Helo feel better. But the effect is only temporary. In truth he is doing even more damage to himself.

  As the gold and black swirl sweeps through his channels it nullifies the effect of taunt and free’s Helo from his false hatred. Only now he truly does feel hatred toward the enemy tank. Free from the control Helo now has the mental capacity to notice the plethora of attacks that are headed right for him.

  There are magic bolts of many different kinds, arrows, spears, and even what looks like a flying turtle. Not sure what to make of the last thing, Helo keeps the boosting skill active and realizes that he can’t turn back. If he does, he will be killed in a maelstrom of different attacks. Instead, Helo keeps going on with his charge toward the tank.

  This has the added effect of making everyone think he is still under the taunt’s enthrallment. Diving forward Helo uses the proximity to the tank to avoid most of the damage. He is still struck on the left leg by an ‘Ice Bolt’ and another arrow.

  Coming up from the roll, Helo dodges the tanks ‘Shield Bash’ and spins to avoid the shield all together. Slipping around the tank he can see the surprise in the man’s actions. The tanks stumbles forward, he expected to make contact with Helo. He fails to stop Helo from moving past him and right toward the healer in the group.

  It is a man with an average build and face. To be honest, almost everything about the healer seems middle ground. Which is a surprise because both kitsune and dryads seem to be supernaturally attractive. Even his defensive skill is middle ground. Using his empowered skill, Helo’s energy is rapidly dwindling and is no longer recovering. The defensive spell the healer uses starts to manifest in front of Helo’s striking dagger.

  With only his left-hand available Helo presses forward. Using up close to the last of his energy reserves Helo wraps his dagger in a dark energy and the shield shatters before it even had a chance to be of use. His dagger breaks past the healer’s armor like robe with ease and with a wet noise piercing into his chest.

  Ripping the dagger free Helo shoulder checks the healer in the now bloody chest and the two of them disappear under some brush. Quickly draining as much vitality as he can Helo wills the new energy to heal his leg first. Within moments his leg is healed enough, and Helo takes off running.

  With a burst of speed from his now active, even if it is killing him, boosting skill and the vitality he drained from the healer. Helo is able to swing to the right around his pursuers and by the time he runs out of excess vitality he is back to having a solid lead.

  The next few minutes are a mix of a balancing act and an empty fuel tank for Helo. His body is so damaged and strained that even the extra vitality and his golden flared eyes weren’t enough to fix everything. The damage his boosting skill is doing isn’t something that can just be healed easily. It requires rest. At the same time, he can’t release the skill. It boosts his endurance as well, and if he lets it go, he will probably die. All of that is happening while he is doing his best to avoid further damage. But that isn’t everything, his mental energy only had a few minutes to regenerate, and he had to use his aura to conceal himself. Now with the boosting skill active he is losing energy at a prodigious rate. He has so little that he even needs to release his concealment.