Chapter 49: Blood Contest
Azakh-Tur watched the slaughter unfold, his broodlings carving a wet, thrashing hole in the swarm below. Grin stretching, teeth bared, he lobbed stones into the chaos. Each hit broke flesh, ribs caving, skulls bursting, limbs folding the wrong way.
'This feeling… it's intoxicating.'
This wasn't a war, no banners, no victory worth song. But seeing his choices take shape in blood...it gnawed at him in a way that felt too good to stop. Power got under the skin like nothing else.
"Grimm! Get over here—watch with me!"
His voice carried an edge of excitement, but no answering glow came to join him. He turned, brow tightening, and saw the little ghost low to the ground, his glow dull.
"Grimm? What're you doing?"
The skull turned away, spine and dangling guts sagging with him.
Irritation prickled. He crossed the space, but the closer he got, the heavier the pull between them felt. Standing over the little shade, he could feel it. Why he was sunk so low.
"Jealous? 'Cause they can level?"
No flicker.
"Dagger, then?"
Nothing.
He thought on it, and only one reason stuck.
"You pissed 'cause they can kill and you can't?"
Grimm's head turned slow, eye-lights dim, hollow with want.
Something tightened in Azakh-Tur's chest. He knew that ache...wanting to rip, to hear something break under your hands, and being denied it.
"I'll look into it. Maybe we find a way. But for now, your brood mates are making their first kills—you should watch."
Grimm turned away like he meant to refuse, glow trying to stay dim, but it betrayed him, brightening. He hesitated, then floated up to perch on Azakh-Tur's shoulder.
They turned to look down together, just in time for painful warning to stab through his gut, spiking with urgency. He quickly found the source and cursed himself for looking away.
He jumped.
Butcher's Wrath tore out from his arms.
"Brood Feast!"
[-2 SM]
[Brood Feast // Active]
[Target // Elderwarren Rabbit Kit – Lvl 9]
Pain was bleeding out. His way of fighting, face-first, all teeth and bone, meant his Feed healing couldn't keep pace. With his HP under ten percent, Azakh-Tur triggered the class skill and marked the target.
Bloodlight burst off both broodlings. They immediately hit the level 9 kit together, teeth and claws ripping straight into meat before it could even scream.
[Class Skill Profile // Brood Feast]
[Type: Active]
[Category: Summoning]
[Rank // F]
[Evolvable // Yes]
[Sub-category: Buff]
[Description]
[Command all Broodlings to feast on a corpse or wounded enemy, rapidly healing themselves and you slightly if successful]
[Cost // 2 SM]
[Effect]
[Target // Dead body or enemy under 25% HP]
[On success // Heal you + Broodlings for = % of health consumed from victim]
[If no target found // Broodlings turn frenzied for 10 seconds // Attack faster]
[Cooldown // 30 sec]
[Time active // Instant // Frenzy lasts 10 seconds if triggered]
[Flavor Text]
["Dead or dying, it is all fuel."]
The rest of the swarm didn't wait politely. That was fine, he hadn't jumped to watch.
He hit like a falling weapon, cleavers carving in wide, meat-hungry arcs. Fur and skin split under the blades; heads came away half-attached, jaws still twitching.
The XP gain was thin, most kills too far beneath him, but every cut bled HP and Soulmass back into him. And slaughter was slaughter. It never disappointed.
Even Grimm joined in, invisible to everything but the carnage. He drifted through the mess, pushing through warm viscera, curling his intangible claws in the loops of rabbit guts as he giggled.
[Brood Feast // Deactivated]
[Health Consumed // 21 HP]
[+21HP]
[HP // 300/300]
[SM // 36/36]
Health full, his fingers had grown back, skin still dark at the seams. Pain stood taller now, chest rising slow, his health creeping back with every bite taken. With only a handful of kits left, it didn't take long to finish them.
When the last body dropped, Panic's laughter filled the air...high, low, overlapping, cut with the stink of iron and shit.
"Good job, boys. Hurry up and finish—"
Butcher's Wrath began to slice back into his arms.
"Get your health back up."
Both broodlings grinned, red to the teeth, and fell on the nearest corpses. Flesh tore loose in strips, wet chewing filling the space.
'Let's see who took it.'
He pulled their profiles.
[Broodling // Pain]
[Classification // Demon Spawn]
[Subclass // Broodling (Imp)]
[Rank // E]
[Level 6]
[Core Stats]
[STR // 14 -> 17]
[VIT // 12 -> 14]
[AGI // 11 -> 14]
[INT // 12 -> 14]
[AP // 5]
[HP // 35/180]
[EXP // 999/1384]
Pain's potential spoke for itself, thick frontliner, made to hold and break. Panic, though, he was the opposite. Fast, erratic, always on the edge of frenzy, and that's what won it for him.
[Broodling // Panic]
[Classification // Demon Spawn]
[Subclass // Broodling (Imp)]
[Rank // E]
[Level // 6]
[Core Stats]
[STR // 11 -> 14]
[VIT // 12 -> 14]
[AGI // 16 -> 19]
[INT // 12 -> 14]
[AP // 5]
[HP // 87/140]
[EXP 1110/1384]
'Fast little bastard… that speed's gonna play a major factor in his development—'
He glanced over just as Panic draped a scalp over his head, lifting the dead ears with his claws. The broodling gurgled as he chewed, tongue working the meat behind the teeth.
'Yeah...he's gonna be interesting.'
Azakh-Tur clacked his claws once, the sound sharp in the blood-heavy air.
"All right. Time to reveal who won."
Both heads snapped up at once, jaws dripping, one crowned with too many ears.
"Panic takes it."
Gnarled Fang bloomed in his palm, the demon tooth glowing for a moment with system light. He held it out.
Pain's snarl rose deep, tail slamming into a corpse and bursting it across the stone.
Panic froze. For the first time since he'd clawed into life, he was still. Through the Brood Link, Azakh-Tur felt the weight pressing down on him...something close to awe. Then a thought came unbidden, words from the human's memories, not his...but fitting.
Panic was finding his religion.
But the stillness dragged too long. Azakh-Tur's voice cut sharp.
"Take it."
The blade was gone before the last word settled. Panic stood before him, clutching it like the most fragile and precious thing in existence.
"You'll need to kill with it before it's truly yours. Take care of it and it'll grow with you. Use it well and its strength will adapt to how you use it."
[User sounds so wise.]
'Fuck you.'
Panic's gaze lifted from the weapon, Grimms' blue light flickering in his eyes.
"Thanks, Boss. Panic promises."
"Don't let him get ahead of you, Pain. I expect a lot from both of you."
Pain straightened at that, posture harder, though the loss still hung on him.
Azakh-Tur's eyes swept the cave. Blood, meat, and ruin lay in every direction. The fight had been a complete success. If he'd managed the field better, it might have been cleaner, but satisfaction settled in his chest all the same.
Thinking a moment, he burned through the broodlings unspent AP. Pain's strength jumped to 20, vitality to 16. Panic's agility climbed to 22, vitality also to 16.
Armed now, Panic was starting to pull ahead.
Bloodlight rippled over the broodling's bodies, muscles tensing and shifting under their skin.
Azakh-Tur's gaze dropped to his own stats...nine AP still sitting unused.
'Haven't stopped moving since I set foot here. Things are finally steadying… but I'm still in this dungeon, and I've got no idea what else, or who else, is crawling around with me.'
Human memories mixed with his own, the mess of it slowing him down. This wasn't a choice to make blind. He needed to decide his stats carefully.
[STR // 25 // D]
[VIT // 20 // E]
[AGI // 28 // D]
[INT // 14 // E]
[FLH // 23 // D]
[WIL // 16 // E]
[AP // 9]
Thirteen points to bring everything into D Rank. Only WIL, INT, and VIT lagged behind. The mobs here thankfully wouldn't outlevel him by much. The boss, though… different story.
"Unless I level hard in here, I'm gonna need humans."
Dungeons were cleared in teams, not solo, it was too much risk, especially at rank. Lower-level runs could be farmed alone, but bosses changed the equation.
Bosses were always unique. Usually they were just meaner versions of the mobs in their territory...but not always.
A memory flashed from Seo-jin's life. His team in a goblin dungeon, laughing one moment, facing down a full-grown dragon the next. Nearly every one of them died before they got out.
If that happened, the dungeon would be labeled Disaster Class, and the name implied everything.
"Right now, I need survivability, not strength."
[AP // 9 -> 0]
[STR // 25 // D]
[VIT // 20 -> 24 // E -> D]
[AGI // 28 -> 33 // D -> C]
[INT // 14 // E]
[FLH // 23 // D]
[WIL // 16 // E]
Four points into vitality, five into agility. Both jumped a rank. One step now planted in C Rank.
Bloodlight burst off him in a sudden flare, spilling across stone and shadow. The heat of it pulled the broodlings' attention immediately. Grimm hovered close, all of them watching with a silent intensity. They didn't know why it mattered, but the sight of their boss growing stronger hit them in a place deeper than thought.
[System // Notification]
[VIT Modifier Upgrade // 1VIT×10]
[AGI Modifier Upgrade // 1AGI×16]
Knowing he would get higher returns for each stat was one of his favorite features of the system. Every step steadily carried more weight, every kill brought him more and more power.
He was truly starting to love his life.
[Recommendation: Assume human form. Probability of encountering humans is high. Probability of avoiding immediate combat drops sharply if you remain… you.]
'You always have to say some shit, don't you?'
Even though it had cut into his mood, the system was right...his face didn't exactly spell friendly.
Deciding he mught as well, he shut his eyes. Strange enough, anticipation built low in his gut, and this time, instead of asking the system how, he reached for the skill the way he'd reach for Butcher's Wrath...thinking of the name, the slot, and Wohan Seo-jin's face.
[Minor Shifting / Slot 2 // Active]
[Soul Foundation // Wohan Seo-jin]
The change came almost instantly, and that was the worst part. No warning. No build. One moment whole, the next ripped inside out. It felt like his guts were being dragged out his throat and rammed back in the other end.
His breath hitched as bones moved where they shouldn't, skin pulled too tight then split to make room. Muscles rolled like things alive under his flesh. Something wet hit the ground.
And when he opened his eyes...the pain was gone.
And the world had changed.