[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 187 - Ether Coin

Monsters were not made equal. Most of the time, their star rank meant little to nothing. There were bug-type monsters that reached the fifth star by the time they became adults. But at 4% capacity per star, they weren’t exactly the match of human five-stars.

Conversely, many monsters had a lot of essence capacity per star. Golems were among these. But again, this meant rather little. They were dumb masses of material moving through sheer force of the energy they were infused with. Rarely did they have the thought capacity to even form an actual ability. 

The thing standing before Freddy was a rare and terrifying exception.

Its dirty black metal body gleamed in the white snow as it cocked its faceless head at him. It raised a hand. Three stars lit up in its chest.

Freddy instantly leaped back and raised his shields to defend his head. 

The barrage of metal shrapnel whistled through the air with terrifying, high-pitched pews as they slammed into his body. Even with his scales and his natural durability, many of them still punched clean through and out the other end. His Crimson Wing Shields were instantly spent and just barely held together as it focused fire on his head, trying to kill him.

Soon after, it stopped, putting its arm down. It had grown a little smaller in size, given that it had to use its own body as a material for the bullets. Then, its arms morphed into blades and it got into a stance, preparing to rush him. 

Freddy felt the three mercenaries heading towards him with the intent to push the monster back. But he had other plans. “Stay away!” he shouted. “Let me handle this! That’s an order!”

The men stopped, hesitating. But they were professionals. And an order from their employer, unless it broke contract terms, was absolute. They pulled back.

The golem leaped forward with immense speed, manipulating its own body to sprint faster and faster. 

Freddy raised his left arm to defend against the overhead blade strike that came whistling with the high-pitched vibration of another three star ability. It cut straight through his raised arm, and he barely moved his head of the way of the same fate. Even then, a part of his skull was caught in the attack. A good deal of bone was shaved off, but not enough to reach the brain. 

The Sanguine Avenger keened with wrath, and seeing his opening, Freddy swung it with double-starred Hydraulic Flex. The weapon slammed into the golem’s hip with a vengeance, crushing a good part of its body and embedding almost half-way through. 

It was then that Freddy felt the weapon suddenly soften in his grip. It liquefied and melted as the golem subsumed the crimson metal and used it to fill the cracks caused by Freddy’s attack.

“Shit.”

He instantly ran back, putting as much as he could into Hydraulic Flex. The monster followed, swinging extended blades and repeatedly shooting small projectiles at openings. 

If Freddy kept running, he would lose the fight. This was a golem. Given that the weakest ones still had loads of essence per star, he wouldn’t be surprised if the thing chasing him had a capacity over 2000%. Even with the insane raw power it was pushing into its attacks, it could still outlast him in a fight. On top of that, it was an inorganic enemy, so 1% Lifesteal had nothing to heal him from.

It wouldn’t be long before he lost.

He had to do something. 

The golem was focused on attacking, clearly confident there wasn’t much Freddy could do to fight back. Seeing its aggressive attitude, Freddy suddenly redirected his body straight towards the monster, jumping straight at its head and triggering a double-starred Tsunami Strike, then, a brief moment before he struck, he activated the impact function of his Knuckle Blade. 

His attack exploded with force, annihilating his right hand and sending the monster flying back. Its face was cracked apart, with a fist-sized portion of it glowing from the heat released by the impact, but even then, it wasn’t enough to kill it.

“Twisted Pendulum!” he shouted as he fell to the ground and ran as quickly as he could in the other direction. 

With one arm cut off and the other blown to bits, he couldn’t even hold a weapon anymore. With his speed halved, the monster got up and caught up to him in the blink of an eye. Then, just as it was about to swing an extended blade that would take his head off, the ratio of time reversed. 

His speed doubled, Freddy double-starred Hydraulic Flex and jumped straight up into the air. 

Looking down, he saw the monster turn to face him. It raised its hands, preparing to shoot him out of the sky. Rather than waste his time defending, he focused on the time. Just as his speed boost ran out, he activated another double-starred Tsunami Strike. Then, he chanted again. “Twisted Pendulum.” 

The golem clearly hadn’t expected him to suddenly fall down so quickly, so it failed to get out of the way. Freddy’s feet landed on its face with a crushing amount of force. His legs exploded, and the golem’s body bent beneath the impact. The shockwave and the heat of the sudden impact vaporized the snow in a small radius around the explosion, lifting a curtain of steam.

Freddy blinked the stars out of his sight as he opened his eyes. He was on the ground not too far from the explosion. The golem had stopped moving. Looking down, he took a moment to appreciate the armor again. The boots had instantly repaired themselves, even if they were empty, given the lack of feet within. Thankfully, they were still attached to his leggings. 

Sadly, his Ether Capture Ring had been on his left hand, right next to his storage ring and Blood Ring. Otherwise, judging by the sheer volume of ether that kill had granted, he was sure he would have made a coin or two.

“I’m gonna need some help!” he yelled. 

A few moments later, the porter found him and picked him up, pulling him away from the golem’s corpse. 

While running back to the others, the porter chuckled. “You’re quite something,”

“I guess I am,” Freddy said.

The man sighed, shaking his head. “Sir, with all due respect—even with your power, what were you thinking when you decided to fight that thing alone?”

Freddy shrugged. “Latent aura.”

Given the hundred to one ratio of latent aura accumulation he had, he would have to be quite proactive to make it to the third star. Only taking on fights he was comfortable with wasn’t going to get him very far. 

The man scoffed. “Figures. So you’re one of those types. Just so you know, even with that talent of yours, you’ll die one day if you keep doing this.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Freddy said, a little annoyed by the man’s sudden lecture. But still, he decided not to antagonize him needlessly, so he kept his mouth shut.

Freddy was brought back to the others, where Sophia proceeded to “heal” him. She held back quite a bit, only growing some tissue back in the vague shape of what was missing. Even with the confidentiality of mercenaries, they wouldn’t be openly displaying that aspect of what Sophia could do.

“We should head back for now,” the scout said. “Take a few hours to rest and recover.”

Freddy turned to him. “What? Are you tired?”

The scout scowled. “No… but you—”

Freddy laughed. “Then we keep going.”

The golems didn't take much more work. And before they were even done, a pack of giant wolf monsters dropped on them, finally allowing Freddy to fully heal himself. 

Drake and Lily were back in the game, too, but they were in the back close to the mercenaries, who had to step in every once in a while to save them. Mostly Lily. Drake was doing fine.

Sophia fared much better against them. And as she killed a few, she immediately proceeded to usurp their flesh to add more to herself. 

Freddy had thought Drake’s size was too far. But that was nothing compared to what Sophia was doing to herself. Any time he thought she had grown big enough, she laughed at his naivete as she added more matter to the pile. Before long, she had transformed herself into a hulking mass of muscle and bone plating. 

The mercenaries had likely seen a vast number of crazy things during their careers. But even they watched with wide eyes as Sophia reached 10 meters in height and then created a giant maw right in the middle of her torso. She collected the wolves with six massive arms and just dropped them into the opening in her body, where they were chewed up and added to the ever-growing monstrosity. 

At this point, Freddy had to pause. “The reflux essence should have killed you by now. How the hell are you doing that?”

She turned to face him with her overgrown, misshapen head before shooting him a disgustingly twisted smile. “Crude manipulation is very cheap,” she said with a deep, booming voice. “I’m basically just gluing the flesh to myself. I am reaching my limits, though. I’ll have to slow down.”

“Oh… Well, you keep doing that,” he said as he turned to continue fighting.

It didn’t take long before they stumbled upon another serious threat. This time, it was a small, white wolf. Using the air affinity, it moved at quite the speed, and with some rather impressive intelligence, it stalked from afar, waiting for its chance to strike. 

The only reason they noticed it was because of their scout, who was keeping watch in all directions.

This fight could have gotten nasty, but it went substantially better than the golem encounter. 

Freddy activated his Twisted Pendulum ahead of time, and then used the extra speed to throw a precise javelin at the wolf’s head. Twisted Pendulum was great in concert with his Blood Javelin. When he moved twice as fast, he also threw the spear twice as quickly. Even with the wolf’s ghost-like speed, it couldn’t react in time. 

This time, he had been carrying his Ether Capture Ring. And capture ether, it did. 

An uncomfortable feeling spread through Freddy’s chest as the world got all funky around him. It burned and made breathing difficult. It was exactly as he remembered. That being said, something like this was barely enough to even just distract him anymore. With a shimmer and a ting, the coin appeared attached to the ring. Freddy plucked it off and stored it for later, already excited to see whether Bloodshed could use it for anything.

For the first few groups of monsters, they stumbled upon distinct groups. Then, as the density of monsters increased, the groups vanished, and they faced an onslaught of a variety of creatures.

Freddy and Sophia made for a terrifying duo. While he was a lot faster at killing overall, Sophia could take care of small fry in the blink of an eye—all she had to do was swing one of her freakishly long limbs and she could sweep away dozens of creatures at once. 

From small drakes, to snakes, to more wolves and golems, then feline beasts, fleshy abominations, bugs, bat-like things, the monsters just kept coming, with their variety and numbers skyrocketing with each coming hour. 

The mercenaries finally had to actually step in and help. 

The porter fought primarily through using parasitic blood fungus tendrils to attack weak points, such as eyes. But his lightning affinity wasn’t just for show, either. He blinked around with impressive speed, showcasing quite ridiculous reflexes and striking power.

The support rained blessings, but also curses. He was frighteningly effective, prioritizing dangerous targets and using as little as he could get away with. All he needed to do was to create an opening, and usually, one of the others took over. Freddy had thought the man would be using his Paralysis Curse more often, but he actually seemed to rely on Heighten Instinct and Inflict Pain the most. 

Heighten Instinct didn’t even seem like much of a curse, but it very much so was. It was great on semi-intelligent monsters since it effectively made them revert to mindless beasts. Even against humans, it was scary, since having to cope with suddenly sharper instincts threw people off and made them fall for feints they would otherwise see through. 

And Inflict Pain needed no explanation.

Their scout was hardly a powerhouse in regards to sheer force, but his spear made quick work of even rather dangerous targets. He seemed to rely on refractory illusions—basically, just offsetting his apparent position to the side enough that it would catch an opponent off guard. On top of that, he was keenly aware of everything around him, making him a weakness-spotting machine.

But even then, they didn’t get involved much. They were mostly tasked with keeping the two kids safe and protecting their position. 

For the more serious stuff, Freddy took care of it himself, with a bit of help from Sophia at times.

Every so often, they’d stumble upon something particularly scary, but only one monster was anywhere near the threat level of the first golem—a wyvern. It would have likely rained fire on them until it charred them all to crisp, but Freddy managed to hit its wing and bring it down, where Sophia then wrapped it up in mounds of flesh, allowing him to relatively safely chop it into bits. 

Its hide was damn tough, and it even restrained, it could thrash hard enough to get a hit on Freddy. But that didn’t matter much.

The coins accumulated faster than Freddy expected, and it wasn’t long until he had ten stashed away in his storage ring.

Frankly, it was starting to feel a little overwhelming, even for him. He feared that, if things continued at this pace, they wouldn’t last the week, let alone a few months. 

But, thankfully, this had just been the peak of the first tide. Soon enough, the tide ebbed and the horde thinned dramatically. 

Freddy checked his watch, and seeing only a few red dots, he nodded in satisfaction. “We can go take a break now for a few hours.”

The others happily jumped at the chance. 

***

Freddy sat in one of the private rooms in the bunker, Bloodshed sitting in front of him, holding one of the coins. It looked at him with its glowing red eyes. “This has little use for me, Master,” it said. “I can use it to replenish my energy when you release me through the ring, but other than that, the aura is mostly blank.”

Sighing, Freddy took the coin back. “Yeah, I figured that’d be the case. Well, at least it sells for a lot of money.”

Putting it away, he decided to leave the room. There were only three people in the lounge. 

Their porter—John—sat on one of the couches while chatting amicably with Drake and Lily. Freddy was a bit surprised at the man’s demeanor. He was nothing like the gruff mercenary he’d acted as when talking to Freddy. If anything, he was acting more like a cool dad, throwing compliments and tips at the couple on the other side of the table.

The conversation quieted as Freddy walked in. “Don’t let me interrupt you,” he said as he took a seat. The table was full of sweets and snacks. A number of glasses waited empty, with a large glass jug of instant coffee sitting in the middle. This wasn't the cheap shit, either. It was actually pretty good stuff, even if it was still instant coffee. Freddy poured himself a generous portion and took a seat. 

The conversation between the others continued as Freddy sipped his coffee in silence. For some reason, he kept glancing at Janice. Well, Lily, but he was still struggling to mentally adjust to calling her that. He wasn’t glancing at her because of her looks or anything creepy like that. Rather, he felt like he was forgetting something. It bothered him. 

Brushing it aside for now, he leaned back into the couch. 

“Hey. Mr. Cliff,” the porter called, turning all gruff again. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute, if you don’t mind.” 

“Please, call me Freddy,” he said. “Either that or Mr. Stern, if you insist. I already know you’ve heard my real name from rumors. Don’t pretend like you haven’t.” 

The man scoffed. “Very well.”

“Are we interrupting?” Lucas—or, well, Drake asked. “If so, we can leave the room.”

“Feel free to stay,” the man said. “If… Mr. Stern is alright with that.”

“Sure. They aren’t bothering me.”

Drake and Lily still glanced at each other. They whispered into each other’s ears and then nodded, suddenly closing their eyes. They must have entered the Netherecho. 

“About today—” the mercenary started, but Freddy suddenly leaped to his feet. 

The Netherecho. He turned to look at Lily again. 

She could manipulate the aura of objects with her soul construct. If so…

What could she do with the ether coin?