1% Lifesteal

The cool, pleasant wind of early spring caressed the tall wheat, carried clouds of dust across the tilled soil, and rustled the branches of a nearby tree. The tall sun bit with the burning heat of noon, and naught but a few tiny clouds speckled the edges of the distant horizon.

There, in his torn straitjacket and white underwear, splattered in blood and smelling of beer, stood a reaper holding a scythe, carefully observing the house where he had—less than twenty minutes ago—claimed a life.

He wasn't thrilled to have done that.

His original plan had been to wait until night when he could sneak out. Now he had to run.

In front of the house, there was a toolshed. Behind it was a small stable with two green drakes inside; the domesticated, intelligent animals were used either for transportation or as farm animals. In front of it, there was a tiny, ragged carriage.

Sparse houses marked the nearby area as a rural settlement, and a road led to where they were more densely packed.

Freddy took a deep breath as he carried the scythe to the shed.

While he walked calmly, his mind sprinted.

Did Peter have more family members? What if someone was on their way to visit his father? True, judging from what he had seen, this man didn't seem like much of a social animal, but the return of a crippled son was something people would talk about.

And then there was the third, most pressing issue—he had no ID. Perhaps this wouldn't be the biggest issue in the world if his intent was to contact the authorities and tell his story. But that was a stupid idea on too many levels to count—and he was done trusting authorities.

Taking a deep breath, he reoriented himself. One step at a time.

First, he entered the deteriorating house and the horribly filthy toilet. There were piles of cardboard tubes and unwashed clothes, a thick stratum of filth on the floor, heavy limescale on the toilet bowl and bathtub, and layers of rust on the faucets. The only even vaguely clean part of the room was the mirror.

He stepped before it and took a look at himself. He was immediately taken aback at his appearance. There was no hair on his head, as he already knew, but even beyond that, he looked different. Very different. With every star, archhumans developed new notable physiological traits. For him, that seemed to be becoming a lot more handsome—beautiful even. And… taller?

Wow, he thought to himself. Really won the evolution lottery on my looks, at least.

He went to the other room in the house and looked for some clothes. Everything looked four sizes too big for him, and nothing was clean. There was a box on top of the closet. He pulled it down and looked inside.

There were clothes inside, and these were maybe only one size too small. Given how they smelled of mold, they hadn't been in use for a long time.

The only articles that didn't look utterly ridiculous on him were the plain white T-shirt and black sweatpants, which he had to tie quite firmly to keep in place around his waist, and he had to curl the pant legs to make them sit above his feet. Speaking of feet, he managed to dig out some old sneakers from the back corner of Peter's room.

They were his size.

But they didn't fit.

Looking at his feet, he realized that they too had changed in structure, appearing wider and perhaps even slightly longer. Had his evolution made his feet grow? Sighing, he forced the sneakers on anyway. He needed something.

There wasn't much room in the storage ring. But, with a flash of essence and a soft popping sound, the shirt vanished and appeared pushed against the upper wall of the small box.

Then he thought. He planned. He stuck to the main points and acted fast.

The idea of burning the house down flashed briefly in his mind, but that would bring too much attention too soon. Should he bury the body in the fields? Finding a good spot and digging an appropriately large hole for the bulky man wouldn't take just a few minutes of work, and as far as he knew, someone could already be on their way there.

All he needed was to postpone the discovery of the body for a while. Just long enough for him to make an escape.

Although he dropped the idea of burning the house down, he took a lighter with him, just in case.

Then he looked for money. He found a wallet in the living room and a safe in the bedroom. Luckily, the man was a cheapskate, so the safe was rusty trash that blew open with only a single Flowing Strike kick. The wallet had only a couple hundred bucks, but the safe held almost thirteen thousand dollars. Somehow, he squeezed the money into the tiny space left in the storage ring. There was no hope of fitting anything without getting rid of something else.

He closed all the windows, pulled all the curtains, lowered the shades, and went outside.

There, he found the carriage behind the house.

One Flowing Strike after another turned it into a pile of scrap wood he haphazardly threw into the house, where nobody would see it. Then he walked into the stables. Judging by the single set of reins, the small carriage was probably meant to be pulled by only one of these beings.

Both hissed at him once they saw him, and he approached them carefully. For one of them, he changed the dirty water and spilled out a massive pile of food to keep it fed. For the other, he dragged it out, killed it with a few solid punches, walked over to the house, and flung it inside, hiding it in the kitchen where the smell hopefully wouldn't reach the porch.

Just in case, he dragged a wheelbarrow of manure closer to the porch to disguise it.

This way, if anyone visited, it would look like this man had gone somewhere. That was believable enough. If the ruse worked for just a few days, it would be enough.

Locking the doors to the house and throwing the keys far into the wheat fields, he turned around. He would prefer it if none of the residents saw him.

So, he looked for the direction with the fewest houses and found that it led to a large forest.

Then… he ran.

***

The thick canopy above allowed a few rays of sunlight to peer through. The forest was dense in low bushes, the ground was coated in leaves, and for the most part, other than the distant chirping of birds and rustling of branches, it was quiet.

This was Freddy's third day of running.

Sitting on the ground, he lifted a finger above his mouth, and a thin stream of water began flowing a few moments later. Drinking water created from essence was a fool's errand. It would simply vanish when it entered his body, so he had to condense real water out of the air. Making water evaporate with essence control was a lot easier than condensing it. But he got the hang of it with a few days of practice. Extreme thirst was one hell of a motivator.

If his body was still as densely packed with water as it had been less than two months ago, he wouldn't need water for weeks, but to disguise himself as Peter Vane, he had to undo Abyssal Depths through the use of a technique he jokingly referred to as Shallow Puddles. It would take him a while of regular use of Abyssal Depths to regain the progress he'd lost.

Abyssal Depths could only increase one's body weight up to 30% per stage. At stage one, it could do 60%. Given how skinny he was at the moment, it wouldn't take him long to max it out.

Looking around the woods, he finally felt safe enough to take a break. Although three whole days of running seemed like overkill, there was always the possibility of someone with a specialized talent showing up and tracking him down. The further away he was, the better.

He hoped that this case wouldn't seem important enough to call on someone like that, but with the disappearance of the presumably disabled Peter Vane, things could get complicated.

With his decreased body weight, he felt as light as a feather, and he could already feel the impact of his improved two-star physique kicking in, even though he was still frighteningly skinny.

Sitting down in a small clearing a few steps away from a tree, he finally looked through the ring. It was packed with a whole load of containers, bags, papers, a bunch of random gadgets he wasn't familiar with, and a few vials of… blood. Of course.

First, he took out all the papers. They were mostly either documents or personal records of the patriarch. There were a lot of random contracts and stuff. As far as he could tell, most of it was information that would be useful to Kraven or their enemies. But to him, there was little of value. Given that he had no intent to reveal that he was the one who had killed the patriarch, he would be getting rid of these documents.

Although he was tempted to take out the lighter and burn them, he knew that wasn't a good idea in a forest for several reasons.

Instead, he tore them up, used Create Water to turn them into paper mush, then buried them.

There was what appeared to be some form of contact device hidden among the other stuff. He was paranoid that taking it out for even a moment would clue someone in on his location. Better to stay safe.

Other than the vials of blood and random medicines, there seemed to be a suspicious lack of consumables. No essence recovery elixirs, healing potions, or boosts; it was likely that Janhalar had used them during their fight without him noticing. It made sense.

There were a few random pills and other stuff, but nothing he was willing to gamble his life on trying out.

In fact, he was scared of pretty much everything in this ring. The tech he didn't want to touch because he was afraid it could be tracked; the pills and stuff he didn't want to take because he might die; the blood he couldn't use at all—what if something could smell it? Perhaps it was all just paranoia, but the personal contents of a four-star archhuman weren't something to be played with.

He could interact with the stuff inside the ring and arrange it as he pleased, and removing all the papers had freed up quite a bit of space, so he split the remaining inventory into two piles. The first was for what he wanted to get rid of. Anything ethertech-related, with any sort of Kraven insignia on it, and all the vials of blood went on that side. The second, however…

First, there were the ring and the dagger. This was all the equipment that had been on the man's body, other than the robes, which had been torn into useless scraps. The damage it had sustained had completely dissipated whatever aura it had. All the random pills and other consumable stuff was here, too. He didn't know what they were used for, but they definitely couldn't be tracked. Probably.

And then there was the final item. This one he took out, fully confident that he knew it was safe to interact with.

After all, it was something he was already deeply familiar with.

Opening the small glass box, he pulled out the prime vestige from within. It was a crimson-red ball with spiked, serrated teeth and wide, wild eyes.

"Who is it, my child," it said in a feminine voice, "that you wish to see bleed?"

"What's the talent you hold?" he asked, cutting to the chase.

"If you invite me into your soul," it answered, "for every unique drop of blood you consume, you will gain more authority over your own."

"Huh," he mused. He assumed that meant it was a stackable power-up that enhanced essence manipulation, at least for the blood affinity.

Damn, that's freakin' good, he thought. Given the phrasing, he presumed that it meant the essence control would improve whenever the user consumed the blood of a new species. There were a practically infinite number of different animals and monsters, making this an unbelievably potent power.

"What affinity do you hold?" he asked.

"Blood, life, and death," it answered.

For a long moment, he simply stared at the thing he was holding with his jaw hanging wide open. "Hoooooooooly—" he exclaimed. Then he frowned. "God fucking damn it!" he swore. What a shame. This was an absolutely top-tier prime vestige—and he had no use for it.

But wait. "I want to accept your power into my soul," he tried. Wasn't there something about unique primes that Madame had told him?

"You fool! You are clearly already awakened!" it screamed.

Well, there goes that plan. It wasn't unique, so he couldn't claim it, and it wasn't like he could sell it, either. That sounded like a way to advertise to the Kraven faction that he was related to their patriarch's death.

Still, this was one hell of a freakin' talent. Three affinities, too, and it had the life and death affinities!? Insane. Had Janhalar been holding onto it for a future successor?

Hmmm…

And if he now had it in his possession… "Heh." He smirked. He was sure this was a blow the Kraven Clan wouldn't easily recover from. Served those bastards right.

If his Super Farmer prime was worth at least 70 million, then this…

It must have been worth billions. It made sense. A single little ball like this could easily solidify the future of an entire faction. This made him think—why not give it to his own kid? Or maybe use it as a political tool one day? It wasn't all lost. There would be a chance to make use of it. Eventually.

Still, returning it into the ring felt like throwing his firstborn into a river. Even just a billion dollars—no, even a million—sounded like it could patch a big, gaping, dollar-shaped hole in his heart. Sighing, he turned his attention to the dagger.

Yet again, when he saw it, he defensively raised his hand to defend his throat. This had also happened the first time he looked at it. It gave off a strong sense of danger and threat to one's life. And it made his neck feel itchy. Taking it out for a moment, he held it, taking it in. Holding it felt nice, or whatever the bloody, violent version of nice felt like. But something was bothering him.

Its appearance tickled something in the distant back of his mind. Had he seen this somewhere before? The idea seemed absurd, but maybe Janhalar had used it as a torture tool at one point, and he'd simply forgotten about that.

Returning it back inside, he took out the ring.

Now this. This felt strange. The ring was made from dry, almost sticky, red material. It felt like cured meat to the touch, and the pearl on it looked—and felt—unexpectedly cheap. Like it was nothing but a piece of plastic. But the presence this thing gave off was clear on one thing. This wasn't just a toy.

It gave off a sensation he couldn't quite put his finger on, but he swore that it felt connected to his soul. Perhaps it was resonating with his blood affinity?

Carefully gripping it with his thumb and index finger, he slowly put it on the ring finger on his other hand. It was pretty big, and he was worried that it would fall off, but as soon as he put it on—

The ring suddenly tightened, coiling around his finger.

"Shit!" he screamed and reflexively pulled on it, but it didn't budge. A sharp pain spread through his flesh as he felt this thing assimilate into his bone. But then, in a moment, the pain vanished as if it had never been there.

"Fuuuuck…" he breathed out. Well, that was a mistake. But it wasn't the end of the world. With his talent, he could sever his finger and—

"Wait," he said, going quiet and focusing on the strange object. The sensation he had faintly felt before… He had been right. This thing was connected to his soul. More specifically, it was bound to Bloodshed.

So that was how Janhalar found him. He had been wondering how the hell the man appeared.

"What is that, Master?" Bloodshed's voice echoed in its mind.

Freddy was surprised to hear it. The bloody skeleton would speak sometimes, but this rarely lasted long. According to what it had told him earlier, it seemed to have limited energy and couldn't talk too often.

Rather than waste the rare opportunity with idle thoughts, he asked, "Bloodshed, can you feel anything strange with this ring?"

Instead of answering his question, Bloodshed's presence suddenly vanished.

"Huh?" he blurted dumbly.

A stream of red liquid flowed out of his ring and fell to the ground, spinning in a vortex. A moment later, the bloody skeleton stood there, at right about the height of his waist.

He blinked at it.

Bloodshed immediately knelt and prostrated itself. "I was content with serving Master through Blood Sacrifice, to be there when he most needed me. To think Master would be so generous…"

Freddy didn't look at his soul. Whether anything had happened to his ability was none of his concern. The first thing he did was pick up the skeleton and give it a massive hug while laughing like a maniac.

"You're back!" he cheered. "You're actually back outside!"

He didn't think of the benefits, uses, or gains. At that moment, he only saw his friend being set free again. Pretty much anyone would judge him for considering a unique spirit a buddy, but he had no respect for the opinions of others. Nobody deserved to spit on the sacrifices this bloody little goofball had made for him. And the argument that "spirits weren't people" held no weight, either, since Bloodshed had a genuine soul.

The construct seemed rather confused at his behavior, and his affection made his shirt look like he'd hugged someone to death, but he didn't care.

Eventually, he put Bloodshed back down and breathed a relieved, satisfied sigh.

Checking his ethercosm, he spotted…

The cage was still there. A part of it was bent, creating an opening, but that didn't catch his attention.

No. The thing that caught his eye was something else entirely. There was a giant red ring surrounding his first star.

Freddy's first star was already quite large. Compared to that, his second star was only at around a tenth of its volume. The appearance of this strange phenomenon caught him entirely off-guard.

Immediately, he returned and looked at the ring. Was this the true effect of whatever this item did?

"Master," Bloodshed called, spotting his confusion. "That ring you have on your finger. If you wish to know, I can tell you what it does."

Freddy looked at Bloodshed and nodded. "Hell yeah!" he said, offering Bloodshed a fist bump.

"Do you—" it started. "Do you wish to punch me?"

"No!" he denied vehemently. "You're meant to smack your fist into mine."

"If that is what Master wishes." It lifted a bony arm and swung a clumsy fist forward. It struck true.

Freddy grinned.

"That ring," it said, continuing its explanation, "reduces essence expenditure for blood abilities and increases their power."

"What!?" he spluttered, feeling excitement bubbling in his chest. "By how much?"

"The expenditure goes from a hundred parts to perhaps ninety-seven," it declared. "As for the power, it goes from a hundred parts to a little over a hundred and two."

Well. That seemed mighty underwhelming—3% lower cost and 2% higher power. Well, he was sure that this thing was valuable, but he was expecting more from an item that originated from the patriarch of a blood clan.

"Master," Bloodshed added.

"Hmm?"

"That ring is deeply connected to the concept of bloodshed. I feel that through bloodshed, its power will grow."

That made his mind go blank. His mouth gaped as he slowly turned to face the fleshy piece of jewelry. He remembered a conversation he had had with Madame a long time ago. Back then, she told him that the only way for an item to grow…

He gulped. This was a unique item. Although unique items were the least valuable among uniques, this still changed the situation entirely. He couldn't show it off, so he needed a way to hide it. He had to buy gloves or something as soon as possible.

Before that, he turned to Bloodshed. "Your shell is still in my ethercosm. Does that mean that you have a way to return?"

It nodded slowly. "I can return and leave as long as Master still wears that ring."

"Just to clarify, you are a spirit now, correct?"

"Indeed."

"So, how long can you stay in reality?" he asked.

It paused briefly, then answered, "I do not feel any limits."

Freddy frowned at that. "Shouldn't there be a limit?" Spirits could leave the Netherecho and enter reality, but it was usually only for a brief time—several minutes at most.

"I do not know," it said simply.

"Huh… all right. Well then, uh… Would you want to…?" He didn't know how to phrase his next question, but he tried anyway. "Would you prefer to… ride… in my soul, or like on my back, or…?"

"However Master plea—"

"No," he interrupted it, waving his arms and wagging his finger. "What 'Master pleases,' in this case, is whatever you prefer," he stated, pointing a finger at it. "So, which will it be?"

"Very well, then. I believe that being in the soul will be more convenient."

"But… is that really what you want?" he asked. "Or are you just saying that because you want to make it easier on me?"

"I… I do not understand. All I wish is to serve Master," it said. "I have no other desires."

"Okay then!" he said. "If you truly wish to serve me, then I command you to get yourself a desire. I want you to want one of the two options for a reason that doesn't include my personal benefit."

The skeleton stared at him blankly. A few seconds later, it began shivering, then it started cracking and oozing blood from its bones.

"Whoa!" He jumped. "Are you okay?"

"I… I cannot do that, Master. I have failed you," it said as it continued its deterioration.

"Okay, okay, I get it, you can stop. You never had to do that; I was really just joking, okay!?" he rushed out, tripping over his own words.

Suddenly, the cracks began mending, and Bloodshed stood tall once more. "I apologize. I misinterpreted your words."

He frowned, his hands still reaching out for Bloodshed. But his fingers curled a bit, and he slumped back. His gaze softened. "Bloodshed," he said. "You can come back into my soul."

The skeleton obeyed, melting into a liquid that flowed through the air and into the ring, leaving a silence in the woods behind. Loneliness.

"Man I really need some friends."

Well then. It was time to continue his search for civilization.

With a sigh, he turned around and continued running.

It took him only a few more hours to run into a road. From there, it was simple to track it to a settlement. As he passed through the woods, he spotted the shimmering glass buildings in the distance. It wasn't a large city like Pittersville but more of a medium-sized town, as far as he could tell.

Eventually, a sign revealed the town's name—Welcome to Imperta.