7 Grinding XP

Sanguinius flew back toward the city while trying to train his flying ability at the same time. It only took a few minutes to return to the city. As he flew he continued to scan the ground and skies for any more beasts, but even as an angel with enhanced eyesight, he still couldn't be sure that he didn't miss anything. That gave him an idea, causing him to quickly pull up the system and start creating a new body modification.

[Body Modification: Vitality Sight

Description: Gives the user the ability to see sources of life no matter if they are cloaked by illusions, invisibility, or even behind walls/underground.

Rank: N/A

Cost: 35 xp]

Sanguinius smiled as he inspected the modification carefully before confirming the modification to his body. He stopped smiling as soon as the modification began. The process wasn't painful per se, but it felt more like dozens of worms were squirming around just under the surface of his eyes. It was a rather off-putting feeling, causing him to shut his eyes tight until the process was over. Luckily the process was over quickly and never evolved into true pain.

As soon as Sanguinius opened his eyes he was stunned. His vision was the same as before, but also different at the same time. It was like he was both looking normally and through a thermal camera at the same time. As he scanned the forest far below he was instantly blinded by the mass of vitality. Mentally he tried to command his eyes only to see the vitality of sentient creatures and was pleased to see that it worked.

Sanguinius stopped flying and started down at the forest in fascination. He could see green auras in the shape of animals either wandering the forest or sleeping in burrows or trees. The only thing he could liken it to was having real-life wallhacks. It didn't matter how much was in the way of the animal, he could still see it. There were differences in the intensity of the auras that he was able to see.

He watched as a wolf pounced on a rabbit, wrapping its fangs around the rabbit's neck and crushing it. The rabbit's aura of vitality quickly began to fade, until only the aura of the wolf remained. Dying and old animal's auras were much less intense than that of a newborn. As he turned his head to look at the city of Gresit down below him he saw the vitality of thousands of humans all gathered in one place like a beacon shining brightly.

Most of all, among the shining beacon that was Gresit, was an aura that was so powerful that it practically blocked out every other aura in the city. Sanguinius had to focus on seeing past this aura to even notice the aura of all the humans. This aura belonged to Rex of course. Even though the other angel was dozens of kilometers away and underground his outline was still visible clear as day.

Sanguinius picked up speed to go and reconvene with Rex as he could see the other angel was ascending up and out of the underground. A sonic boom sounded as he pushed his wings to the absolute maximum. He tore across the sky and landed in front of the cathedral just as the sun was beginning to set in the sky. Before he even entered the building he could tell that it was full of people.

With a sigh, Sanguinius walked forward and pushed the massive doors open. As soon as the people inside saw that it was him they crowded forward. In total there had to be around 2,000 people in the cathedral, leaving it extremely cramped. Many dying humans were carried and laid out in front of him. The healthy sank to their knees and prayed, he sank to a knee and rested his hand on the body of a man in critical condition.

This was the one part about being an angel that he enjoyed, being expected to heal people. It gave him plenty of opportunities to train his healing skill, but deep down he couldn't help but smile as he did good and helped others. None of this showed on his face, his face remained stoic as he healed the humans. They were such weak creatures that even the most grievous injuries could be healed with only one use of his touch of healing.

Sanguinius did almost grin as he watched his skill's percentage continue to rise as he healed more and more people. The more deadly the injury the more his skill increased until it finally broke through and became his first skill to reach Beginner, but he didn't stop there. He wasn't even a third of the way through the crowd when the skill ranked up. The skill's rank up made him more excited to continue healing more people, but good things can't last and finally, there were no more injured people to heal.

Sanguinus looked at the system screen and wanted to let out a laugh when he saw where the skill currently rested.

[Beginner (+25%) - Touch of Healing (70%)]

The increase had been massive, but before he could do a celebration of any kind the doors swung open. At first, Sanguinius assumed that it was just Rex, but the screams of panic dismissed that idea immediately. Swinging around he looked into the doorway and locked eyes with the biggest beast he had ever seen. Its eyes and fangs glowed a vibrant blue color, but its terrifying face was contorted in a look of disbelief.

Before the beast could react Sanguinius condensed an orb of light on the tip of his finger and shot it at the monster. It tried to dodge, but the attack caught it in the head and threw it back. It wasn't anything fatal, but it bought him time to fly forward and blast the beast's downed form with a barrage of holy light attacks, before finally finishing it off with a blast to the head.

It hadn't come alone though. His sixth sense alerted him to an enemy jumping at his back, causing Sanguinius to conjure a spear of light and shove it backward, causing the beast that had tried to sneak attack him to scream in pain before dying. More launched themselves at him from the shadows, but were unable to break past a shield of light that he conjured to protect himself.

He simply turned and sank the spear into the ground, causing it to explode into a storm of light that didn't affect him in the slightest but was deadly to the monsters. The moment the skill ranked up he could tell. One second his attacks were ripping through the beasts, but not instantly killing them, the next, he barely had to try to massacre the monsters.

Soon, he stood alone before a pile of smoldering corpses. A sudden brightening of the dark street foretold the arrival of Rex. The other angel looked down at the street before nodding and then speaking.

"I found the vampire below the city and killed it. Before it died I was able to learn the location of Dracula and his castle. When we find and eliminate him along with his vampire generals we can leave the world and return to heaven."

I nodded in agreement before pausing and voicing a question.

"Should we go clear at least the majority of the beasts from the other major cities before launching an attack on Dracula?"

Rex raised a hand to his face, considering. He seemed to waver back and forth for a moment before finally coming to a decision.

"Yes, but we'll have to split up to save time. I won't be there to protect you so be careful. I promised to look after you, don't make me break that promise."

"I won't. Trust me, after my death I won't engage unprepared."

"Okay then. We'll meet again back here in four days. See you soon"

With that, Rex launched into the sky and began heading in the direction of the nearest city. Sanguinius watched him go for a moment before lifting into the air himself and flying in the other direction. As he drifted amongst the clouds he used his new sight to lazily scan the wilderness for any of the beasts as he drifted toward the largest cluster of vitality he could see in the distance.

For a long time, he didn't see any of the beasts, but as he approached the nearest city he saw hundreds gathered in a loose perimeter, many flying into the city to destroy and kill for the night, but many more were already inside the city. Sanguinius descended from the clouds, the pointer finger of his left hand already extended with a marble-sized orb of holy light already condensed on his finger. His gleaming white sword grasped tightly in his right hand.

He tucked his wings and dove at the biggest cluster of beasts flying above the city, two beams of light extending out in front of him. The two attacks hit true, causing an explosion to illuminate the city for a brief moment. That caught the attention of the monsters, causing them to turn and glare at him. The closest opened its mouth to shoot a fireball, but due to the speed of his dive, he was in front of it in an instant, cleaving it in two with his blade.

Raising a holy shield, Sanguinius turned and engaged the closest monsters while remaining protected from ranged attacks. He struck hard and fast with his blade, becoming a whirlwind of death as he carved a path through the beasts. His long reach along with the size of the massive sword allowed him to remain well outside of their reach. When the mass of enemies around him got too thick he would extend his left hand and send out an AOE blast of holy light.

As his blade opened up the belly of a beast his sixth sense flared. Turning he put an explosive beam of light through the head of the monster that tried to strike him from behind. As he fought high above the city his wings constantly beat, allowing him to maneuver out of the way of his enemies. He dodged a blast of fire as he flipped upside down, sending a volley of light beams through a particularly clustered group of the beasts at the same time as his blade sunk deep into the skull of another monster.

The slaughter continued as the beasts threw themselves at him in waves, leaving him little time to recover in between waves. As Sanguinius felt his reserves of holy light failing he placed both hands on his blade and continued fighting through the crowd until eventually there were no more enemies ahead of him.

Once he looked around and confirmed that the onslaught was over Sanguinius landed on the city wall and caught his breath. The view in this city was much the same as the one in Gresit, dead and dying humans everywhere. The lights of their souls faded as they went either to this world's heaven or hell. Idly he wondered if he could create a skill to use souls somehow, but he didn't have time to think about this particular subject as his sixth sense screamed in warning.

Sanguinius narrowly avoided the blade that attempted to decapitate him. The blade instead scrapped against his golden vanbraces and he deflected the blow. The force behind the blow wasn't incredible, but at the same time, it definitely wasn't human. He spun, blasting three quick beams of light off, but they impacted nothing. All three blasts were dodged by his attacker, a tall pale man in pitch-black clothes. The man bared his fangs and hissed at him bringing his blade back around to swing once more.

Flying above the blow, Sanguinius remained out of the vampire's reach as he blasted the entire area with a cone of concentrated light. The man screeched in pain while trying desperately to cover himself with his black coat, but that only gave time for him to close the distance and stab the vampire through the throat with his long blade. With a twist, he made sure the rip his blade out of the man's neck in a way that severed his carotid artery.

Sanguinius watched as the vampire died, a massive pool of blood pooling as his body tried desperately to close the wound. Deciding that the man had suffered enough he put an explosive ray of light through the man's head. Brain matter sprayed out in every direction as the angel watched impassively. No soul lingered once the vampire died, no doubt it was long since claimed by a demon.

Scanning the city and its surroundings with his enhanced sight he found no signs of any beasts. So he decided to take a quick breather before returning to his xp grinding. He waited a solid 10 minutes before returning to the skies and flying toward the next city. As he streaked across the skies, noticeably faster than he had before Sanguinius checked his status screen. He had held off on checking this long due to not wanting to get in the habit of checking the system too often in case of sneak attacks.

[Status:

Name: Sanguinius

Race: Angel

Rank: Two winged - Angel

Progress to Next Rank: 21%

Perks: [Fast Learner], [Double XP], [Mental Immunity]

Skills:

Novice (+5%) - Acrobatics (66%), Sixth Sense (58%), Ressurection (0%)

Beginner (+25%) - Touch of Healing (70%), Flying (60%), Holy Light Manipulation (55%), Swordsmanship (40%)

Apprentice (+45%) - None

Adept (+80%) - None

Advanced (+125%) - None

Master (+180%) - None

Grandmaster (+250%) - None

Body Mods: Vitality Sight

XP: 684]

Sanguinius whistled in appreciation as he inspected his status. Double Xp and Fast Learner were really putting in the work. Speaking of xp, he looked at how much xp he had gained so far and began the creation of an item that he knew would be invaluable, especially when he fought demons in the future. He would also be taking not one but two pages out of Roy's book with this move.

[Item: Devil Fruit (Hie Hie no Mi)

Description: Gives the user the ability to create, control, and transform into ice at will. This gives the user the ability to ignore all physical attacks not imbued with magic. All the inherent weaknesses of the devil fruit have also been removed.

Rank: N/A

Cost: 500 xp]

Sanguinius smiled as an odd-looking fruit dropped into his hand. Not even the loss of almost all of his xp could reduce the size of his grin. He paused his flight to open his mouth and toss the fruit inside. He tried his best to swallow before he could taste the disgusting fruit, but despite his best efforts he still felt the need to vomit. It was only due to his immense joy that he didn't vomit. Ice powers would be perfect for an angel due to most demons from the abyss utilizing fire primarily.