Chapter 60

  A Bloodline Bottleneck

  Flash.

  A burst of light that seemed to slow down and stretch on into infinity. My mind knew this was the effect of adrenaline coursing through my body and mind. An automatic effect of the brain experiencing an intense fear.

  What caused this effect, what forced my mind to slow down to this extent? Well the answer was simple, my mind was experiencing a moment of both pure focus, meeting adrenaline, meeting powers that were still outside my mind’s ability to fully comprehend.

  All I knew in this moment was that I had started a chain reaction of force and power. My blade sliced through the air and struck a piece of squirming and wriggling chaos squarely. As my glowing blade landed, I saw the moment my blade made contact with the dark viscous solution and began to cut through the inky darkness. Yet, there was something wrong as the power of my blade that had managed to repel the inky darkness for a moment quickly began to fizzle out, as if tempering steel in oil. My burning blade was almost instantly quenched in the dark solution.

  If that was all that happened, it would have been fine, but I saw the moment the inky sludge seemed to regroup and gather itself. Almost seeming to shake itself to consciousness, before fighting back against the quickly disbursing blast of Soul Devouring energy that had been infused into my blade. As it came to life, it began circulating over and around the remaining pools of energy and quickly soaked into first the blade, and then shooting up the blade to the hilt, where it met a bit of resistance, before slowing causing the remaining energy within the blade’s hilt to slowly extinguish.

  My mind was in shock and by the time I had the thought to let go of the blade and take a step back, it had gone onto its third phase, that of having long black tentacles reaching out and grabbing hold of my hands.

  Fortunately, Mr. Yi had told me to coat my hands as well, which was the only thing that saved me, for a moment. For the tentacles that did touch my glowing hands began to melt almost immediately upon contact.

  Sizzle.

  With my hands covered with a healthy portion of my bloodline’s Soul Devouring Skill’s energy it gave me the chance I needed.

  Seeing that this was going to be dangerous as I had somehow awakened a dark tentacle monster, I reacted on instinct.

  Cycling my body to create more mana I used my Golden Life Ratio Mana Regeneration* Skill on reflex. My mind instantly cycling through Fibonacci sequences in rapid succession, all while I began infusing the mana I was generating with my bloodline’s own Soul Devour energy.

  I even went a step further to force extra Soul Devouring energy into my wooden practice blade that I was starting to think was made of something more than just wood. That or if it was wood, it was a tempered wood that could hold a magical charge well. A fact that seemed to be proven a second later as the blade began to glow quickly with my infused mana, as I first ripped it free. It’s surface so bright and hot to the inky defense being that it a swath of darkness was burnt free and collapsed into a dried up husk, desiccating before it even hit the ground.

  Slink, glow, slash.

  Once free, my body and mind went on autopilot, as I fought and slashed my way free of the tentacle hooks that had almost grabbed hold of me.

  With my hand free, slicing off inky twitching branches became easier, for all I had to do at first was slash blindly and infuse as much energy into my blade as possible. I was winning, the branches that the inky pool could create were fewer and slower. Everything seemed like it would be perfect.

  There was just one catch. One tiny problem.

  I was out of mana.

  No, that wasn’t correct, I was out of non-life attuned mana. But that shouldn’t be a problem, right? I was still generating pools of mana as my mind went through different calculations.

  Why can’t my own body use my mana to fuel my bloodline power? The thought both made sense and no sense at the same time.

  My body had been using the unattributed mana all along to activate my bloodline power. Even my Trash Skill needed unattuned mana, so why not my bloodline power?

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  Slash, slop, stuck.

  I kept swinging, only to find that my blade met more and more resistance with each swing. Almost as if the monster that had been cut away until now had suddenly found a way to resist my strikes. Though resistance wasn’t the right word, it was like I was running a device that suddenly ran out of available power.

  Yet, I wasn’t done. I still had energy, I still had mana, and I refused to have this stop right here. Mentally, I grabbed the now life infused mana that was coursing through my body and I forced it to my body. I forced it to run directly through the spot where my bloodline Skill existed. It was a stupid last-ditch idea, one that was the equivalent of putting high octane fuel into a diesel engine, but it was the only option I had at the moment.

  Nothing.

  At first there was nothing but resistance, but after a second I felt it, a crack. Not the pain filled crack that I had in my soul earlier when I tried to use too many powers all at once, but a different kind of cracking, one that seemed to push my bloodline Skill a bit further.

  “Gah-uh, get off me!” I cried out, as I managed to work my wooden blade free, as I begun swing it back into the tar like substance. Tar that just dispersed to the side before collecting itself and once again trying to wrap around my blade.

  With one final push of will, I forced the life mana to flow into my bloodline Skill one last time. But that’s when it happened. I saw a system message.

  Blood. . .

  ***

  (Madame Anastasia Bloom)

  (An hour ago)

  The team of five veterans stood off to the side, watching and waiting the new recruit go through her trial by fire.

  “You sure this is for the best?” Madame Voyou asked, a note of concern in her voice. It was clear that she had taken a liking to Madame Bloom’s Apprentice.

  “Yes, this is the time when her class is still being worked and defined. By pushing herself here now, she can hopefully push her class to its full capabilities,” Madame Bloom responded, though she too had to worry about the girl. They had pushed her a lot over the last two nights, and to go immediately into this today, it almost seemed like they were asking the impossible.

  “You sure we aren’t going to far, I mean she already has a very powerful class. I mean she’s sporting full synchronization with her Class Skills, despite only having four, right?” Mr. Karl asked, watching as the girl slashed her way through relentless waves of spirits.

  “You’ve never seen what the truly awakened DiVoratore family is capable of, have you?” Madame Bloom stated, laying out her true hope for the girl. A hope that was so faint and fragile that she felt by just speaking about it, would cause that hope to shatter and break like dropped glass.

  “You are referring to the children’s stories? Of Titus and the others, ones that could consecrate a whole battlefield?” Mr. Karl cut in, a note of disbelief in his tone.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t a battlefield, that story has been exaggerated. It just helped us gain a foothold that was then used to create Rot’s Reach.” Madame Bloom commented.

  “You speak as if you were there?” Madame Voyou cut in. At that comment Madame Bloom just turned her face and locked eyes with Madame Voyou’s two bright blue eyes. Eyes that seemed like they had always been as beautiful and unblemished as they were right now. Seeing that look of conviction in her eyes, Madame Voyou nodded, “you were there?”

  Madame Bloom nodded, “I was young then, I just got my class and barely knew what end was up. But Titus DiVoratore was my commander at the time. He was the one who took me under his wing and showed me how to fly on my own.”

  As she spoke, a note of reverence filled Madame Bloom’s voice.

  “What is that crazy easterner doing?” Mr. Karl’s voice cut in. For a moment Madame Bloom wanted to dismiss the comment, as she knew Mr. Yi would not want to push their pupil too far, as she was certain that he too had taken a liking to the girl. Which was the only reason why she let Mr. Yi take point, as he was trying to help push her through to her next level with her Improvised Weapons Skill, which he swore she would be able to advance here shortly, if he was granted permission to push her training. That request, along with knowing that her class could still evolve its capabilities if put under life and death struggles was the only thing that let her agree to this.

  Knowing that a team of veterans were ready to strike at these low level spirits was more than reassuring.

  Yet, it wasn’t until she saw what Mr. Yi was having the girl do next that caused a slight surge of fear to run down her spine. From their distance, the act almost looked benign. As he had her aim her glowing practice sword at a slightly raised dais of dark earth. At least, that was what Madame Bloom first thought, before realizing that the dark earth was squirming even at this distance.

  “What is he doing?” Madame Bloom found herself asking as she saw her apprentice strike the blob.

  FLASH BURST!

  There was a bright wave of light and energy that erupted from the strike causing Madame Bloom and everyone around her to turn their heads away. By the time they managed to look back, a shadow defense seal had been activated.

  “Get away!” Madame Bloom shouted, but it was too late as the coiling inky tentacles shot out and began wrapping themselves over and around her apprentice. Seeing the trap sprung so stupidly, Madame Bloom charged forward, only realizing after she arrived that she had nothing to repel the shadow defense.

  Only Mr. Yi could possibly do something, but he just seemed to be waiting. Waiting for what Madame Bloom didn’t know. Especially as her apprentice seemed to be quickly overwhelmed by the relentless barrage of inky tentacles. Tentacles that could rot and devour skin upon contact, if given enough time to capture and fully digest a target. That was their favorite method of attack, encircling a target, covering them in tentacles and then slowly crushing their prey to death while ultimately devouring them in inky darkness.

  “Get her!” Madame Bloom cried out, grabbing and pushing Mr. Yi by the elbow. Mr. Yi for his part only stumbled forward for a step, his glowing yellow eyes never taking their gaze off the battle that was ensuing. A battle that was quickly running to an end, as her apprentice ran out of mana.

  With a reluctance, Mr. Yi stepped forward about ready to act, to step in and rescue the apprentice, but that’s when Madame Bloom saw something remarkable happen.

  A faint green glow appeared at first, before glowing brightly and seeming to come to life as her apprentice finally appeared.

  ***

  (Catarine Nadezhda Bloom)

  (Present)

  My system glowed with a message that I could immediately feel the repercussions of even before the system noted the effects taking place.

  At that message, I felt something give, as I could once again push energy into my Skill causing the blade to glow with a faint greenish hue.

  A greenish hue that the rest of my body began mirroring as hundreds of tiny tentacles that had latched onto me in my moment of weakness now began to burn and sizzle.

  “Wruhh!” A deep fingers on chalkboard screech erupted from the creature as it desperately tried to remove its inky grasp from me.

  But it was too late, as my blade seemed to glow brighter and hotter than ever before.

  Smoke, sizzle.

  Suddenly we were back in business, as I began slashing and slicing through the air wildly.

  With this newfound focus and fury, I was ready to finally end this creature for good.

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