"I- I was scared, Fred. What if they found out it was me. What if they killed me, or they hurt the kids. I would never be able to forgive myself if they got hurt because of me", Mrs M said. Hoping to appeal to Frederick's humanity and his love of children.
"Oh I see. You were scared huh. It was the normal case of 'survival of the greater good' huh. In that case I forgive you." Frederick said after gently dropping the kid he had used as a hostage.
"You will. Oh thank God. I knew you would see the bigger picture and reason with m-", her head flew off before she could end her sentence, her warm blood spraying on the children she tried protecting.
"You were scared huh, I can relate to that. Unfortunately actions have consequences", Frederick spoke to the corpse, ignoring the cries and screams of the 7 children left to fend for themselves.
"Squito, show yourself."
A black dot flew out of his bare back, expanding until it reached the size of his head.
Staring at the red markings on the usually silver body of the mosquito, he commanded it to drink any spilt blood it saw, starting with Mrs M.
"To think you were the main reward of that pocket world, it's quite fitting. Though I wish I could infuse more than one of my special skills with you, but oh well. Beggars can't be choosers."
The mosquito busily flying around from corpse to corpse was none other than the boss of the BLOODSUCKERS SWARM dungeon.
Upon the boss's death, it dropped a small glowing silver stone, just like the one it hatched from, only a lot smaller.
Physical contact with the egg would lead to one of those weird messages popping up.
[Do you wish to accept the (mutated Culicidae) as your familiar]
[YES] [NO]
After choosing yes, bonding with it, and feeling a slight burn on his back, he was asked to fuse a special skill with the mosquito.
SWALLOW was the obviously answer since it was a growth- type skill, and BERSERK would be useless since the mosquito would have nothing to be angry about and therefore not utilise the skill well.
"Squito, don't forget to use SWALLOW on the corpses, they are useless to me with those meager boosts they provide. Besides I can just TRANSFER your stats to me as abd when I need them."
Frederick instructed the mosquito who had moved on from sucking blood, which boosted its vitality, to creating little black holes its size which tore of chunks of corpses and sucked them in.
As for the TRANSFER Frederick was talking about, it was his new special skill given by the sin Envy.
He got the skill after fulfilling his evolution requirements of killing 1000 humans and 20 Halflings.
He had evolved into a Hollow Viscount and needed to kill 10,000 more humans, 100 more Halflings and 1 Hollow, in order to evolve further.
As for the new special skill TRANSFER, it allowed one to connect an invisible strand of energy to a target and siphon them of their strength and speed.
The energy rope would break and the stats returned if the distance between parasite and prey widened beyond a certain threshold.
Reeeoww!!
Roaarr!!
A new wave of cats approached him after sensing his prolonged use of magical energy, only to be met with the same fate as their predecessors.
Death.
Only this time it was different.
He was rewarded with something else other than the energy and the minor but permanent boosts in his physicality.
[Hidden SUBQUEST: King of the jungle (complete)]
- Kill (10/10) lions and (10/10) tigers.
- 5% boost to (physicality) when in jungles.
Reading the messages, Frederick was way beyond confused.
A title.
Just for killing some big dumb cats.
It wouldn't always be useful, only in a jungle-like scenery, with someone who was already strong, would the title show its true worth.
Excited by the concept of more kills more rewards, Frederick quickly finished off the rest before jumping into the sky in search of more.
Boom!!
His not so perfect landing was taken well by the environment as buildings and cars shook.
Leaving 'Squito' alone, who was busy enjoying the time of its life, he dashed to the right, his BERSERK enhanced, SWALLOW obtained physicality making him the strongest human, well ex- human on the planet.
A force of nature to be reckoned with.
In a few seconds, he had reached a big building, an apartment complex based on the bent metallic signboard laying on the floor beside him.
Entering the building, he walked past many rooms.
Some with bloodstains on the doors.
Some with no doors, broken doors and so on.
In one of the rooms with the door slightly ajar, he saw a small group huddled up in the corner as a purple portal swirled in front of them, the felines either rolling about lazily or standing in the air, their glowing green eyes daring the hostages to make a move.
Climbing up the 14th and last floor of the high rise complex, he slowly climbed out a window and went up to the open area roof.
Plagued by the numerous desperate faces and glowing eyes of the felines trapped in the building, Frederick did what anyone facing his unique set of circumstances would do.
Activate BERSERK and jump of the building with full strength.
The felines on the floors closest to him looked up, irritated by the sudden presence of magical energy.
Before they could move to attack the source, it vanished only to reappear the next second, with enough force to shake the building.
Boom!!
Again.
Vanish, reappear, earthquake.
And again and again.
By now every living thing in the complex was aware of the trembling, but it was too late.
Crack!!
Crash!! Boom!!
The roof collapsed into the 14th floor, then the 13th then 12th, and not long after, a huge pile of rubble was all that was left of the high rise complex, once a big investment, now a graveyard to both humans and felines.
[Hidden SUBQUEST: FelineMenace (complete)]
- Kill (1069/1000) felines.
- Expend energy to create thin platforms in the air invisible to others.-
"I hit the f*king jackpot. Hahahaa, I knew it. Killing is always the answer." Frederick giggled and rolled in the rubble like a little girl.