CRUNCH.
Garrick's headless body crumpled, his claymore and shield slipping out of his lifeless grip as his body was ruthlessly hurled. His body visibly decaying from the necrotic ichor that slid over his wounds.
Silence crept over the battlefield. Broken by Freyja's haunting scream as tears rolled down her face.
"GAARRRIICCCKKK!"
Anders' hands shook against his cane, his face full of dread, "Gods help us..." he prayed.
Celiac grit his teeth and shouted, "There's no time, we need to get out of-"
Anders didn't hear the rest of his words.
His azure eye twitched locking onto new energy to the side of the now Expert class wolf.
It wasn't Crypt energy - no, this was something else, sharper and sentient. He saw cohesive will and intent. Blood red, raw, and feral. His stomach clenched.
'It's not a human... but it's not a monster either.' His brain worked overtime trying to think of what could possibly be coming toward them that quickly.
His mind raced, 'Bloodspawn.Starved, at that. Out here? Alone? Impossible...' Yet the aura is undeniable, 'I've only seen it once... but it's unmistakable.'
Looking over at the mutt, it had paused its onslaught, savoring Garrick's mangled remains, all head's chewing with a different limb. Anders' stomach twisted at the sight.
Celiac's voice cuts through his thoughts, "Anders! What do we do?!"
He shook his head and scowled, shouting out to his comrades, "As if this nightmare couldn't get worse, we've got a starved bloodspawn heading right toward us! A strong one at that given by it's aura!"
"Is that not a good thing? Let's guide it toward the beast! If it wants our blood, he'll have to fight with the wolf first!" Celiac said.
Anders blinked- nodding grimly, "Yes... Yes, you're right. Brilliant. Let's move!"
He seized Freyja by the waist and threw her over his shoulder. Her arm reaching out, sobbing Garrick's name. Celiac vaulted through the trees above, keeping up with him.
Glancing behind him, he sees the wolf lick its gore-slicked maws and roar, shaking the forest with it's voice.
However Anders barely even heard it.
His eyes were focused on the festering aura of hunger hurtling closer with every breath.
He could see in the darkness. The eyes of the predator.
He was coming.
***
(Hero's POV)
[Satiety: Starved (ACTIVE)]
Hero felt invincible. He couldn't describe it, even if there were a thousand of that wolf he killed earlier, he wouldn't even struggle.
Blood.
The scent flooded his skull, smothering over everything else. It was sweet and alive. His dry throat ached to taste just a bit of human blood. His fangs biting down on his lip.
It was like a man stranded in a desert finding an oasis.
The closer he got the more strange power filled his veins, he was now leaping through the air as opposed to sprinting. The world around him felt weak.
'Humans. Close. Getting closer. Mine!'
Branches broke against his march forward in search of relieving his thirst. His silver sword swatting away vines, as well as entire trees that got in his way. His crimson eyes burned, vision narrowed only to pick up heat, anything else was thrown aside by force.
Then he heard it - a roar.
The first monster he'd found since waking up in this world. Yet he looked at it with indifference.
The ground shook, and the stench of rot came crashing into his senses. The wolf's presence drowned the sweetness in the air, the necrotic stench ruining his appetite.
He glared at the beast, lips turning into a snarl, "Get out of my way!"
'The humans are just past this mutt...' He thought as he tried to make a sprint past it.
However the beast had no intention of letting this man pass it that easily.
It lunged toward Hero before he could get to the humans, an impenetrable wall of teeth, flesh and skeleton collided into him with the force of a landslide.
Hero was hurled to the side at breakneck speed, soil erupting from the ground as he crashes through trees, getting sent flying into an ancient pillar in the courtyard of the ruined temple.
His body bent around the pillar that was stronger than what met the eye. He heard his bones break, cracking as they're beaten into stone.
"Aaghh!" He groans as his body slides down the pillar, sprawling onto the floor.
The watcher chuckles ominously, "Ignorant spawn."
The haze cleared slightly with the pain.
But with the pain, came rage.
On his right hand, the stone's runes he knows not the purpose of, started to glow a sanguine red.
His blood surged round his body irregularly, every vessel thrummed with a vicious rhythm. He felt it move - obeying his body's needs. His bones meshed themselves back together, and the scrapes on his skin faded as if they were never there.
He stands up, cracking his neck, his face was livid.
Scowling at the distant wolf, "You dare to get between me and my food, mutt? You are but a fool."
With the pain residing, the haze returns as he remembers the blood that he's yet to claim.
His body is filled with unknown power, fueled solely by his starved state. He feels abnormally strong. He felt high as a kite, adrenaline pumping through his veins and the power of blood at his fingertips.
His already wide grin reached his cheekbone as he cackled, fangs bared to view.
Hero's veins throbbed, every pulse of blood pounded in his ears like the drums of war. His gaze scattered over the field of blood and flesh, the aftermath of the humans plight. With Garrick's body in pieces.
He inhaled a full breath of the thick air, the smell made his mind fade over. He could feel the blood that covered the ground, the wounds of the beast, the body on the floor.
"Blood..." he muttered, a shiver running through him.
The runes on his hand flared. And his mind was once more dragged to the back of his consciousness. His body moved before his thoughts.
He dropped on all fours like the beast he wanted to kill. His fingers of one hand dug into the blood soaked soil his other stabbed his sword into the ground, his hands burned from the necrotic aspect still lingering.
Sending will through the his sword and hand into the red carpeted forest, the blood answered him.
Garrick's lifeblood lifted itself in twisted ropes, coalescing into one single gargantuan blade the height of the beast itself.
From the wolf's own seeping wounds, threads of green sticky ichor slithered upward from it's hind legs, wrapping itself around it's own neck like a leash pulled tight.
It bucked, snapping at the cords to no avail.
Hero laughed maniacally, his stance unsteady and wild, his own grin spilling across his face. "I don't... I don't even know what I'm doing." His eyes burned brighter as his grip on the earth beneath him grew stronger, the ends of the blood spears lashing like living serpents ready to snap.
"But you... you overgrown rabid dog." He spat, stumbling back up onto his feet. Pointing his sword at the beast. "YOU ARE ALREADY MINE!"
The chain on it's collar pulled up, slowly lifting the wolf to scramble in the air helplessly.
The large crimson sword shot forward at sound breaking speed straight into the necrotic wolf's chest.
As hero lowers his sword, the blade in the wolf starts to tear from the chest all the way through the groin until there was a necrotic undead wolf near split in half, limp, and dangling from it's collar.
Necrotic ichor sprayed as it's rotted insides were plummeting out of it's body, painting the grey temple stones dark green, decorating it with rotten flesh and bone.
The beast's flaming green eyes dimmed, it's body still hung in the air before all the blood magic was dispersed and it fell to the floor.
'What an inefficient use of your power.' The watcher muttered, unapproving of Hero's display.
Hero staggered slightly, leaning back against a pillar, like a drunk man who's had way too much to drink that night. His body shuddered at the strain - his blood still rushing unnaturally fast, muscles twitched with every circulation.
He didn't feel very strong anymore, in fact he'd never felt weaker, he was sure.
But his laughter never stopped.
His vision blurred, and his back slid down the pillar until he was seated, his heart pounded.
'I-I think... I need a little... nap.' were his last thoughts before closing his eyes, his head and arms going limp.
[Satiety: Starved (CRITICAL!)
***
(Anders' POV)
Anders, Celiac and Freyja were not quite sure what they just witnessed.
His jaw clenched, his fingers white from gripping the cane too tightly. His azure eye, still burning, clocked the bloodspawn slumping unconscious.
'What level is that!? Annihilating a Tier 5 necrotic beast in a single attack? I know he's starved but still!' He was shook.
*Thud*
Celiac landed down from the treeline, sweat slicked across his brow. His gaze flickered between the beast and the bloodspawn erratically, his usual composure had taken a serious hit today. "Tell me I'm not the only one who saw him obliterate that monster."
Freyja didn't answer, or that she couldn't, her body still shaking from today's ordeal, clutching her staff to her chest and muttering small prayers.
He let's his Azure Gaze down, his mind's eye closing, and his eyes going back to normal.
Anders' sighed heavily, "Starved, yes. But starved spawns do not gain such strength Not unless their blood lineage is... let's say rare." He cut himself short. A lecture for another time perhaps. But his eyes flicked back to the unconscious figure.
Only one thought permeated his mind despite the madness.
"Baron Licht needs to know about this. Immediately."