Rise of the Blood Weaver - Chapter 70 (Patreon)

[Your blood becomes stronger.]

…

| You now have 126/100 Blood Fragments.

Heat swarmed Arlo’s appendages. But it did little for Arlo’s strained breathing and weak legs. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Even with the high walls of the maze blocking the sun, the sweltering heat still remained.

Arlo glanced at Louis who had his head and shoulders covered with [Dune’s Crest]. He wasn’t bothered by the heat. Not even a little bit. Arlo nodded at him. Louis nodded back.

Merc and Justin wasted no time as they cut open the corpses of the monsters. They split bone, then extracted the cores with practised ease.

Elian approached the beasts he had killed, and said while crouching down. “What was that all about?” He took out a dagger and split open a hounds skull. He plucked out its core.

“Something must have spooked them,” Merc said, and moved onto the next monster.

Arlo joined them. Using [Dreadbane], he extracted his own fragments and placed them in his bag. He was going to give them to Louis, but he had earned his own with his own strength.

“That was awesome to watch, Louis,” Arlo said. “I didn’t know you were so well trained.”

“Huh?” Louis perked up. He shook his head, then moved to extract his own cores. He had killed 3 Beasts.

“The way you fought,” Arlo said with a smile. Then, he plunged his blade into the Beast's skull–the bull–and extracted the core. He continued, “If I’d known you any better, I’d have thought you were secretly a lineage who had undergone extensive combat experience. Where’s that experience been until now, huh?”

Justin’s eyes landed on Louis.

“Oh that,” Louis said in acknowledgement, chuckling. “I’ve always known how to fight thanks to my dad. He wasn’t a Strider, but he was a damned good martial artist. I–It’s only till’ now that I’ve let loose, you know? No longer as scared as before? I don’t know why. I mean, I should be terrified, right?”

“I get it,” Elian said. “It can be scary at first. But you get used to it. The fighting. The killing. Your training soon kicks in, and you find your body moving on its own.”

Louis nodded along. “Right.”

Screams of all kinds. Guttural, piercing, screeching, roaring, arrived from behind. At first, they were gradual, but they were increasingly getting louder. Faster. They were nearing.

“Are you kidding me?” Arlo said. “Can we fight them again?”

Merc stood silent for a second. As if she was listening. She shook her head, and said, “No. They are coming towards us.”

“How is that possible?” Elian asked. “How do they even know we are here? Unless they smell the blood? Smell us?”

“It’s a possibility,” Merc said, finishing up extracting her cores. The others were also finished. She continued, “But the first lot of monsters also knew where we were. Something is attracting them to us directly. Maybe there’s a higher tier creature controlling them. Whatever the reason is, we need to move. Let’s go.”

***

A creature that had two hooved legs, two horns, and holding a machete, bounced off the wall straight for Merc.

“On your right!” Arlo shouted to Merc.

Her leg snapped outwards to a hounds skull. It flew back. She stepped back, and cleaved her sword straight through the leaping satyr.

That was all Arlo could help her with as he was busy himself. Any monster that emerged beyond Merc, was met with two crimson red lances. He was quickly getting more accurate. It was as Elian had said. His body was moving on its own thanks to his training with Sarah.

His ability to hit a moving target was increasing by the second. A hound–the most common of the creatures–sprinted past Merc. She watched it, but didn’t bother to intercept it. She knew by this point her team could handle it.

Arlo frowned. The appendages at his back rose into the air, then slammed down into the beast's shoulders. It went straight through its flesh, and impaled it to the floor. He retracted them. Another beast took its place. He killed that one with a lance through its eye.

However, it was Louis who was the most surprising of them all. It was like watching Merc, but even more battle hardened. He was weaker than Merc, that was obvious. But his ability to kill anything that approached him was no less. His machete always found a weakness. His feet were always where they had to be to counter attack, and dodge at a moment's notice. Not only that, but he seemed to know where the monsters were going to attack, and preemptively move to counter. It was incredible.

Arlo and the others had entered another passageway. The red vines lined the walls all the way up, smothering it, taking control of it. Possessing it.

“There,” Justin said, pointing to a nearby passage that had turned narrow. It had to be only two metres wide.  It was a stark difference to the ten metre wide path that they were currently standing in.

Arlo nodded. It was a perfect place to hold the monsters off. Funnel them in, then slaughter them. For Justin’s shadow lances appearing from surfaces, it was the perfect hunting ground for him.

But Louis stopped. He turned and gazed at the oncoming monsters.

“Louis!” Merc shouted. She slid to a stop.

“We can kill them,” He said without turning around.

He had made the decision for them. It was too late to make it to the narrow path.

Merc grinded her teeth. Without pause or hesitation, she blasted past Louis before the creatures reached him. Once again, she entered the fray, her greatsword flashing a brilliant blaze, and cleaving into the oncoming beasts.

She summoned her Reflection. Like a brutal creature of war, it snipped through the Beasts like they were made of rotten flesh.

Shit, Arlo thought as he also ran into position. His appendage lance pierced through an oncoming hounds chest. He punctured it two more times to finish it off.

However, the corridor was far too wide. It was inevitable they were overrun. There were too many of them. At least double of last time.

Blood splashed, claws tore into Arlo’s flesh, and monsters died by the piles. And then it arrived.