Ch 47:- Beast Hunt Part-2
"Fuck! This is impossible! It has been an hour already, and I have only managed to find five beasts. Even with my abilities, it is impossible to spot a single one. What happened to all of them? Can't they live a little closer to each other?" Rayne exclaimed in frustration. He was standing atop one of the tallest buildings in the city, his eyes glowing a crimson hue with vertical slits. Rayne was searching for any life signatures with the aura of an intermediate-tier beast, but there were none left.
"Sigh, I guess I will fail yet another quest," Rayne muttered. But he was not going to give up. He looked in the direction where he had found the vampires and remembered how they were hunting for a bat-like creature called the Deathbat. There was a considerable amount of them, and he may even be able to complete the second part of the quest without much trouble. However, the problem was that the area was more than 20 kilometers away. Even at his max speed, he would still be wasting a lot of time getting there.
As Rayne paced around the rooftop, thinking of a possible way to reach there fast, suddenly he stopped in his tracks. He focused on his blood aura and surrounded his body with it. Then, he walked back a little bit before sprinting at full speed. At the last moment, he jumped from the rooftop while empowering his leg with Qi. He supplied a little too much Qi, causing his bones to crack. But he gritted his teeth, and as soon as they cracked, they healed. With the help of his Qi, he made his jump from the rooftop and was now high above in the air. He then started to control the blood aura around him, allowing him to levitate. He continued to do this until he was practically flying at a very high speed, only descending once in a while. Previously, the journey which should have taken at least an hour was cut short to only 25 minutes. He soon reached the area where he had previously spotted the vampires hunting, but this time, there were none present; it was empty.
"Do they have some kind of hunting season? In my case, it is more beneficial that there is none present," Rayne said. He then made his way towards the storage unit to see if there was any blood. He was starving right now after losing so much blood, and his body kept on healing. Unfortunately, the storage unit was closed, and with his system not helping him to open it, it only made him more frustrated. Then, he heard a screech, and like some blood-starved beast, he immediately made his way towards it before jumping from the ground and using his flight ability to speed himself up. He delivered a straight kick to the abdomen of the Deathbat, sending it tumbling down. As it tried to stand up and take off to the sky, Rayne did not give it enough time before plunging a spear straight through its head. But it did not die worthlessly; before dying, it gave off a huge scream which nearly burst his ears. It was to alert the rest of the bats of its roost, and sure enough, ten Deathbats, all at the intermediate level, came towards him with anger etched on their faces.
As he saw them coming, he created another ten spears with his blood aura before throwing them at their direction. But they retaliated with a powerful screech which immediately destroyed all the spears and pushed Rayne back, making him fly before hitting a rock and coughing up a mouthful of blood. He looked up at them.
"Damn, I guess this is going to be much harder than I thought," Rayne said, grinning, but it looked horrible with his blood-stained teeth and lips. He stood up as they went on to use another sonic attack. Rayne immediately summoned a blood barrier before him. It was able to block the sonic attack with several cracks, but it wasn't able to block the sound which caused blood to drip from both his ears. He lost his ability to hear, but soon it was resolved as his ears healed completely. He then immediately created a headphone-like thing to block off the sound. Once again, they used a sonic attack, but this time surrounding him from all directions. Not being able to create a blood barrier on time, he got assaulted from all directions, which caused him to fall on his knees and vomit blood all over the ground. He looked extremely pale, even by vampire standards, although none could see, but he was grinning like a madman. The blood that splattered on the ground flowed in all directions, but the deathbat didn't pay any attention to it as they continued with their assault. Soon, the blood reached outside of the barrier that they made and started to form blood spears. Soon they got launched, killing all ten of them by piercing their heads or abdomens.
As the assault stopped, Rayne stood up and looked around him before noticing that six of them were still alive and were getting on their feet. Not wanting them to stand up, he rushed forward and punched one in the head before jumping and then bringing his qi-charged leg on another of the beast's head, smashing it. But the other four had already stood up and seemed to be preparing for another attack. He immediately used quickening and appeared right before it. With his claw covered in hardened blood aura, he pierced right through its body and took out the crystal, killing it instantly. At that moment, one of them used its sonic attack, but Rayne used the corpse as a meat shield to lessen the impact. After that, as it stopped, he once again appeared right before it. But as he went to punch, one of the deathbat grabbed onto him before flying high up in the air and then tossing him upward before opening its mouth in order to use another sonic attack. This time, Rayne gathered blood energy in his mouth before releasing it like a red beam of energy which blasted the deathbat, killing it right away. As he was falling, he used his blood control to control his aura to slow his descent before pointing both his hands and opening his palms. Then he used blood spray on them, creating several holes in their wings, making them fall on the ground. As he landed, he dashed in their direction before performing a spinning kick which rotated its head a whole 360 degrees, killing it in an instant. He didn't stop there as he moved to the next one. It opened its mouth and used sonic, but this time it was weak. Rayne resisted and made his way through it before clutching its head and then ripping it from the body and tossing it away.
"Ugh, sixteen down and thirty-four more to go. I only have about fifty-six minutes left to complete this task," Rayne said as he sat on the ground feeling dizzy and huffing as if he was tired.
"No time to rest, need to keep moving," Rayne said to himself as he stood up and tried to walk but stumbled and fell down.
"I don't think I can continue any longer. I am starving like crazy," Rayne said, looking extremely pale with half-opened eyes. He slapped himself across the face to wake himself up, then looked at the crystal in his hand, which also started to look appetizing to him. He shook it off before making his way towards a source where he sensed a high amount of intermediate-tier beast aura, along with several advanced-tier beasts' aura.
He immediately took off in their direction, running, jumping, and flying until he reached an area with several deathbats flying about, in a huge ravine. He hid behind a rock as he observed them, making a strategy for a possible way of killing them, but all that was for naught as one of the deathbats spotted him, probably due to its echolocation, and charged forward. Rayne immediately dodged it by jumping upward before bringing his feet down and hitting it right on the back. He then once again jumped before forming a spinning energy ball of blood aura in his palm and thrusting forward towards its midsection, killing it instantly by forming a giant hole. This commotion alerted the other Deathbats, who once again started to attack him with their sonic attack. He dodged out of the way at the right time by jumping upward and then fired several condensed blood aura projectiles called [Blood Projectile]. All of them hit, causing them to shut their mouths and stagger. That was all the time he needed. He summoned a massive vortex of blood aura before directing it in their direction, engulfing them and tearing away their limbs.
After that, he fell on the ground, his heart beating at an extreme speed. His healing had slowed down, and he was feeling more tired than ever. He could fall back now, but he could feel it - he was close, close to achieving something. He still didn't understand what it was, but he could feel it was something important. So he continued on. As he stood at the edge of the ravine, he could feel several presences - there may be 100, 200, or even 300. He wasn't sure. He looked back at the 12 corpses that lay there, which he had recently killed before looking forward and then jumping into the dark abyss.
~Some Time Later~
Rayne lay on the ground with a small pool of blood underneath him. His body was damaged beyond belief, but he was grinning as he looked at the last Deathbat with a giant spear lodged right through it. It was the last one, not in the whole colony, as there were still about 200 or more left. This was the last one to complete his quest. He didn't know why, but during the battle, he felt a strange rush of energy. Slowly, he stood up, stumbling, as another one of the Deathbats made his way towards him to kill him. But as soon as he stood up, he felt the strange rush increase until he started to feel pain throughout his body, which caused him to fall on his knees. The Deathbat, at that moment, struck him, making him fall from the cliff that he was standing on towards the bottom of the ravine. At that moment, a system prompt appeared.
[Congratulations on completing the Quest: Self-Discovery.]
[Evolution will now begin...]
Rayne wasn't able to hear what it said, and at that moment, he gave a mental command: "Use the return Rune." As soon as he said that, he vanished from there as if he never existed. He appeared on the rooftop of a building with a scroll by his side, and Rayne crawled his way towards it. As each second passed, the pain became worse. He was also feeling extremely hungry, so much so that it was almost unbearable. As he reached the scroll, he placed one advanced tier crystal on it, and soon he was teleported to his room. As soon as he reached his dorm room, the smell assaulted his nose. His eyes were glowing brightly crimson red, and he could smell the scent of humans. He could hear their heartbeat, and he could almost smell them, but he was in too much pain to concentrate on it. His muscles were tense, his skin tensing, showing each of his muscle cords. His skin had grown so much pale that it was almost white as snow. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't. He clawed his way to the bathroom, where he started to fill the bathtub with water before crawling into it and then sinking into it with hopes of relieving the pain. But it was all for naught. The more minutes passed, the pain became even more unbearable. His body started to look extremely dehydrated, even though he was soaked in water. His body started to look thin, almost as if his bones could be seen, and finally, all that pain stopped, making him feel relieved yet weak at the same time.
[Evolution process was successful. Congratulations, you are now a vampire noble.]
[Special Achievement unlocked: Frugal Vampire.]
[You have gained the trait Frugal Vampire; as a frugal vampire, you could go on days without any kind of blood by starving yourself.]
As he looked at all the prompts, he was shocked, but soon he was lightheaded and fell unconscious in his bathtub. Unable to hear all other notification that came.