RD 2 Ch 24 (Patreon)

Chapter 24

The lion came again, and I felt solid. Strong enough to do something stupid.

I reached out and caught the lion’s paw with a single hand.

The monster stopped dead against my arm.

“Ah. Well, then.” I cocked my other arm back and punched the lion in the muzzle as hard as I could, letting go of the paw in the same moment.

The hit still felt like punching steel, but this time, I made a dent as the lion flew from my grasp, rolling in the dirt a dozen feet away.

I grinned like a loon. This is what I’d come to the Heros Clan for. This was the kind of bloodline I wanted.

That fucking leech. He had actually given me something decent.

The lion scrambled back to its feet and pounced on me.

Like the first time, I stepped into the hit, ducking under the paws and punching it in the gut.

This time, the hit was far more effective.

The lion bent at my fist before it shot away, landing on its back with a pitiful growl.

“See that Galen?” I asked the man still watching.

“So what if you are strong? My grandfather is known to be far stronger.” He crossed his arms.

“I know Hercules is supposed to be the god of strength, right?” I clenched my fist; damn, I needed to check my status after the lion was done.

“Could he have done this on his initiation, though?” The lion rushed me again, and as casually as could be, I turned and socked it in the head, putting the big lion in the dirt once again. “Maybe you think he could have. But there’s no way.”

I mounted the lion and started to pummel the monster.

Its hide was as tough as the first time I had punched it, and Regeneration was working on my fingers as I kept hitting it.

True to its ability, I failed to damage its hide at all.

But I did soon deal enough blunt force trauma for the lion to finally melt into the ground, unable to repair all the organ damage inside.

“Oh?” I snatched up the drop, a vial with a drop of red blood inside. Without even inspecting it, I drank the blood. I did not want Galen to get a chance to see what was inside. I’d seen something similar with the Roc’s bloodline we’d gotten from the B rank instance.

The only other loot was a hat made of the lion’s head. That also went into my ring without much fanfare before I scooped up the gold.

“It’s dead?” Galen came out to see the result.

“Yup. Let’s go get the rest of your group.” I waved my hand in the air as I checked my stats.

[Name: Bran Heros

Level: 24

Class: Blood Hegemon B

Status: Healthy

Strength: 2229

Agility: 1705

Vitality: 2394

Intelligence: 1000

Spirit: 11951

Skills:

…

Primordial Titan Bloodline M]

I knew I’d probably doubled some physical stats because of how my body reacted to the stats, but this was beyond my expectations.

Five thousand total stats.

I looked at the skill, having never seen ‘M’ before. [Mythical] expanded from the M. I couldn’t help but let out a whistle of appreciation. That was impressive.

Maybe the leech wasn’t so bad. He was clearly building his own Primordial bloodline. Why mine became that of a titan was a mystery. Perhaps it had to do with my own body’s origins. If it had originally had the Golden Titan Bloodline, then perhaps that played a role in how the primordial bloodline settled.

Either way, my only concern was the fact I was likely about to start growing. There was no chance that a bloodline like ‘Primordial Titan’ didn’t make me too large to be functional. I’d have to find an ability to counteract that growth. There were a few, and I had to hope that having Borrson DNA in my body would help me grow denser rather than up.

Now, I just had to wait to see how long it took and hope I had enough time to find something to counteract. Nyx’s change had been quick, but she had a class and a bloodline pushing her in the same direction.

My concerns about my impending height change were derailed when I stepped into the sanctuary.

There were eight players in various states of injury. Several had a hollowed-eye look that I had seen before. It happened when hunger truly set into their bodies.

“You left them without food?” I hit Galen in the back of the head, harder than I intended. I winced as he dug a furrow in the ground with his face. I would need to recalibrate my hits. I wasn’t quite used to the strength change yet.

“Did you kill him?” One of the group jumped to her feet.

“Shove off. He left you without food. Here, everyone, have one sandwich and some water.” I started to take food out of my spatial ring. Thankfully, I didn’t go into instances without a massive stock of food. I had learned the importance of always being prepared, and honestly, having all the stores available at the moment was pretty sweet. During the demon wars, everything was sparser.

This food was ten times tastier and more convenient than what you could get after the rapture.

One of the men tried to grab two sandwiches, and I kicked him hard enough to send him sailing into the water with a splash.

“Only one. If you idiots haven’t eaten in a few days, you have to take it slow. Also, no, I didn’t kill him. Just hit him for being an idiot! If he’d told me yesterday that you were all without food then I would have snuck in here last night.” I used my foot to roll Galen over.

His eyes were blank.

I sighed. Maybe I did hit him too hard. Using Blood Transfusion, I healed him and woke him up. “You didn’t tell me they didn’t have food. I should have hit you harder.”

Galen’s group dodged forward, grabbing food and then scurrying back like mice. Soon, everybody was munching on a single sandwich, and I was satisfied.

“Slow. There’s more, but please take it slow,” I reminded them all.

The one I’d kicked into the water was crawling out.

I pointed to the last sandwich. “Just one left. Come and get it.” I saw several of them with crude bandages and started going to each and using Blood Transfusion.

It took from me to heal them, but between Regeneration and my massive pool of vitality, it wasn’t a problem to work through the group and heal them all.

“Excuse me. What was your name?” a woman asked.

“Bran. I’m just a soldier destined for Odyssey. Now, Galen is going to bring you all back to the sanctuary that he’s sharing with Zane’s group. The monster levels are continuing to rise, and you should all kill what you can for some levels, but don’t risk what you can’t manage.” I glared down at Galen, a message in my look.

Galen grimaced but nodded.

“Good. Then I’m off. Leading isn’t my style. And there’s one more initiate separated from the rest.” I flashed them all a smile and turned, waving over my shoulder.

They started talking behind me, and I heard them asking Galen about the lion. He wouldn’t lie, not when I could come back and set his lies straight at the cost of several of his limbs.

Smiling, I felt great stepping out of the cave.

This kind of strength made me feel far more normal and no longer like I would be tossed around by a stray breeze. Before the Rapture, this strength would be considered quite strong. I could probably have a go at it with my father.

Though he’d been separated from his clan’s resources for much of his life, my father was still a powerful example of the Borrson Clan.

Despite what I’d told Galen, and even with Last Stand, I knew I couldn’t go up against some of the leadership in the Heros Clan. Hercules, Zeus, and Circe absolutely had force multipliers besides just their stats. Several of their close underlings would, too.

Still, I was getting to a point where it wouldn’t be so easy to threaten me or put me in a cage.

I looked at my hand where I’d hit Galen to see a small splotch of blood.

Using a plastic bag, I collected it and put it in my spatial ring. With the bloodline, I could probably fight fairly up to level seventy with these monsters. I had to train quickly and use the instance to gain as many levels and stats as I could before I needed to reset my class once again.

A pack of cyclops appeared amid the trees in front of me.

I made a blade with my blood and cut my other hand before flinging flecks of my blood over the group and activating Sanguine Locking.

The whole group froze as my blade swung through them with enough force to rip them to shreds.

Gold tinkled as it fell to the ground, and I paused to pick it up. It would be better if I had someone with me to pick up the loot.

For whatever reason, Nyx’s face appeared in my mind.

I shrugged. I was going to get her anyway. She was better company than Zane or Galen by a long shot.

Moving quickly through the instance, I cleared a swath of monsters until the Stamphilian Birds took to the air not far away and helped me reorient to the sanctuary where I’d left Nyx.

The birds homed in on me, and I raised my sword, cutting into the swarm as it came down on me.

Each swing of my blade cut two of their numbers. Meanwhile, their feathers and beaks cut me but didn’t pierce nearly as deep as they had before.

I strode through the swarm with long strides as a second sword appeared in my hand. I started to swing like a madman, killing them by the dozens before reaching the sanctuary, and the swarm backed off.

It wasn’t time to completely kill them.

“Nyx?” I had expected her near the entrance, working on the birds.

Instead, I saw her deeper in the sanctuary on some ruin in the water, looking at her reflection.

Her snakes perked up first before she turned to face me, the snakes fanning out defensively. That wasn’t the only change. Her waist had transitioned into a serpent and flowed down the rock into the water and then around her. It was a pretty green that went well with her seafoam green hair. The belly of it was a soft gold.

Besides all the change, I could see some of her confidence had completely evaporated, and she was once again worried about her changes.

“Wow,” I said from afar, stepping up closer, “your breasts got bigger.”

Nyx blinked at me. “What?” Her brain short-circuited. I’d said something completely unexpected.

I pretended to heft my chest. “Not to put a point on it, but you were average or below average before. Now, though, those are…”

Nyx burst out laughing. “Everything else happening here and you talk about these?!” She held her chest and squeezed them. “Holy crap. I know my bra stopped fitting, but when did they become danger cups?” She stared down as if she had just realized how large they’d become.

Relief was evident on her face as she continued to laugh and squeeze them while murmuring something to herself about ‘why would snakes need breasts’.

“Danger cups?” I asked.

“Uh… something a friend used to say about D cups.” She blushed and stopped squeezing her chest, suddenly realizing what she was doing. Her shirt was soaked from her hands, and it was clear she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“They might be double danger.” I grinned at her, trying to encourage her.

She laughed, and her lower half splashed in the water revealing just how long it was. From waist to tip was twenty feet of powerful-looking serpent tail. “Double danger! You know, as a woman, it’s nice that you notice. Well, nice that you saw the womanly part of me and not the other parts.” Her tail came out of the water for her to touch. “I’m still getting used to it. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to walk only to faceplant.”

“Well, I just settled down the situation with Galen and the rest of his group. I even beat down another boss. Either we can farm the birds, or better yet, I’d like to take you farming the rest of the instance.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder.

“I got your back. The monsters are getting hard, though. I can only get one or two birds each time.” Her eyes went to the larger pile of materials.

“No problem. We’ll see what we can manage.” I smiled at her. The birds would be both easier and harder to farm.

Sanguine Locking would work on most monsters but not a swarm.

“We’ll leave the birds be. If we can do this as quickly as I think I can, we’ll come back here and farm them for a little bit before we finish this.”

Nyx slithered off the rock slowly, moving in halting motions as her tail curled behind her back and forth, and she came up on land clearly having a little more trouble on the slippery stone.

I realized that she’d been in the water to practice moving.

“Don’t know if I can run past them.” She frowned.

“Hop on.” I turned and exposed my back to her. “Since I left, I might have gotten much stronger.”

“That’s stupid. You were already ridiculously strong.” She came up behind me and hesitated. “The tail is strong.”

“Climb up with your hands and wrap me once or twice to hang on,” I told her.

Cold, soft pressure squeezed onto my back as her thin but powerful arms wrapped around my shoulders before her serpent half managed to coil around me once and squeeze tight.

“This is great,” she murmured.

“Comfortable?” I chuckled. She was getting very cozy, wiggling against me.

“Yeah,” she answered shyly. “Just nice that you came back and like how I look.” One of her serpents came up and poked my cheek. “I’m so sorry. They just do things on their own sometimes.”

“Don’t worry, not worried at all. I’m resistant to poisons anyway,” I said.

“Wait. Really? That's… fucking perfect. You’re too damn perfect,” she mumbled.

I shrugged off whatever she was talking about and leaned forward, pushing off with explosive force and making Nyx cry out as I shot out of the sanctuary and past the birds.