[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 74 - Sabotage

[If you got a notification about chapter "75" I accidentally put the wrong chapter number, woops!]

Freddy sat in the private booth, his face buried in his hands, as Sophia hollered beside him, laughing so hard she could barely breathe.

“You… You…” she muttered. “You dog!” she accused, but her amusement at the situation remained clear as day. She took a sip of the drink and let out a small moan of pleasure as she giggled again, nearly spitting her drink as she forced herself to gulp it down.

He honestly didn’t know why he had told her about what he’d done. Yes, she had pestered him for roughly half an hour, refusing to drop the subject until he spilled the tea, but he was still surprised that he’d actually caved and shared his tale of borderline adultery.

“Can we please drop the subject?” he begged. “You’ve sated your curiosity; now either shut up, or I'll kick you out.”

“Okay, okay,” she said. “Just one more time—bahahahahaha!”

He flicked her forehead, and she reeled back. “Ow!” she yelped. “That frickin’ hurts!”

“You think I could time a Flowing Strike with a flick?” he threatened. “Do you want me to find out?”

“Okay, I get it, geez.” Sophia took another gulp of the drink. “So… Do you just plan to sit here alone all night?”

“What?” He scoffed. “Does your company not count?”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow. “You seriously spent this much money just to what, treat me? Do you have a secret crush on me?” she asked teasingly.

He rolled his eyes. “My plan had been to find some people to join us, preferably cute girls.”

She grinned ear to ear. “Well, what happened?”

His hand reached for the glass of fancy champagne, and he gulped it down in one swing, shuddering as it went down. “I don’t feel like it anymore.”

She snorted a bit, but her amused smile vanished as she nodded. “Yeah. I get that.” She took a sip and put her glass down. “Were you friends with the burnette guy?”

“Who? Theodore?” he asked. Then, he shook his head. “No.”

She stared at him with a discerning gaze. “But it still bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Sighing, he poured himself another glass. “I’ve accidentally hurt many people in my life.” He downed the entire glass in one gulp again and immediately poured himself another. “Every time, I had an excuse.” He downed the glass again. “They hurt me first. I had no choice. I didn’t mean to do it.” He chugged again. “Even this time, I have as many excuses as I need. But that doesn’t change the fact that I fucked up again. And nobody got anything out of it. Not even me.” He tried drinking again, but—

Sophia’s hand firmly gripped his wrist, making him stop. She was leaning forward, her blonde hair covering her eyes. “Don’t,” she said softly.

He nodded and put the glass down, sighing.

The two of them sat there in silence.

His eyes scanned the dancing crowds, watching the mass of people having fun and enjoying themselves. The lights flickered through the dance floor, and the music filled his ears, deafening even his thoughts but doing nothing to lighten his sour mood.

Eventually, he opened his mouth. “Did you ever fuck up so badly that it got someone killed?” he asked.

Sophia chuckled, but there was no joy in her voice. “I almost killed you.”

“And why did you do that?” he asked, facing her. “Tell me honestly. I don’t think you’re either stupid or crazy enough to do something like that. So why?”

She looked uncomfortable at the question, but he didn’t drop it. After a few long seconds of staring, she smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sorry. “She got up. “I’m…” Then she turned around. “I have to go to the toilet real quick,” she said, walking away.

Minutes passed, soon turning into an entire hour.

A couple of girls walked up to his table. “Hey,” one of them called. “Do you mind if we join you?” she asked, yelling over the loud music.

“Feel free to sit down,” he said, getting up and leaving the club. He then went home, took a shower, had a snack, and went to sleep.

***

Over the next few days, Freddy focused on earning as much money as he could while spending each free second on training.

He pushed back his library and gym visits while focusing on growing his abilities.

The day of the interview came and went, with nobody looking for him or telling him anything.

And even Sophia seemed to be avoiding him whenever he came across her in the hub.

The world seemed to have finally left him alone for the most part. Yet he felt more bothered than he had for a long, long time. A constant sense of… emptiness permeated his body, and no matter how hard he worked to distract himself, as soon as the next quiet, lonely moment arrived, he sank into the same pit of despair.

At first, he didn’t really understand why, as it didn’t seem like much had changed.

But that was exactly the problem. Not much had changed. Not enough.

So what if he had a bit more money? So what if he had a bit more personal power?

The same bad habits still stuck to him like dogshit to the bottom of his shoe, and his life remained the same vapid, lonely existence. He still spent most of every day grinding for a better life while people with power far above his own dictated how he was allowed to live.

The only thing of substance that was any different was that he was now way healthier. Yet, every single day he delved into the interspace, he risked death.

A week passed, and he sat in the lobby of the Santorio hub, watching the crowds pass by as he casually sipped on a coffee. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, and, as he probably should have expected… nobody cared. He was reading a magazine on famous archhumans.

Some of those people had talents, even as one-stars, that would obliterate him before he could even think about fighting back. Instant Teleportation, Holy Sword, Telekinesis, hell, there was a guy whose talent allowed him to create semi-sentient metal golems that could independently grow in power over time.

He couldn’t help but feel infinitely bitter at this. Would he ever stand a chance against someone like that? No, but really? It was a power that felt like it existed in a separate world from his own, like something he’d hear about in an ancient myth and not read in a fucking newspaper.

Even with the strange, unique abilities in his soul, he just couldn’t compete with the true elites of society.

And exactly what was he ultimately working towards? Being the strongest person in existence? That just sounded like an excellent way to get targeted by everyone else.

He closed the papers he was reading with an angry slam and threw them on the table, pulling his notebook out of the backpack instead.

Only one thing consistently improved his mood—tracking his progress. Fantasizing about the peak of power was one thing, but at that moment, in the situation he found himself, the more power he had, the more freedom he had.

GATHERING:

Second star—116% Essence capacity

TALENT:

1% Lifesteal: Dynamic-quality healing

SOUL CONSTRUCT:

Scythe: Essence Extraction

TEMPERING TECHNIQUES:

Blood affinity:

Puddle of Blood: Stage 1—57% Progress

Crimson Mercury: Stage 0—98% Progress

Water affinity:

Adaptive Water Body: Stage 1—Complete

Thousand Wet Hells: Stage 1—13% Progress

Abyssal Depths: Stage 1—23% Progress

ACTIVE ABILITIES:

Blood affinity:

Gore Knuckles: Stage 0—95% Progress

Water affinity:

Flowing Strike: Stage 1—24% Progress

Hydraulic Flex: Stage 1—7% Progress

Create Water: Stage 1—23% Progress

Pressure Jet: Unfinished ether shell

Perished water affinity:

Perished Water: Stage ?—? Progress

That Other Ability: No clue

UNIQUE ABILITIES:

Blood Sacrifice: Stage ?

Leviathan’s Fury: Stage ?

UNIQUE CURSED ITEMS:

Blood Ring: -4% essence cost, +3% power for blood-affinity abilities. Can be used to release Bloodshed.

CURSED ITEMS:

Dagger of Bleeding: Melee attacks cause extra bleeding

He was focusing most of his effort on growing Thousand Wet Hells, Gore Knuckles, Pool of Blood, and Crimson Mercury, so those were seeing the most significant growth. Although Thousand Wet Hells appeared to be progressing painfully slowly and was only getting slower with time, its effect on his toughness was already quite noticeable, even at 13% completion of stage 1.

It made sense, too. With this ability, he had created something that, under most circumstances, couldn’t even be used by a human. Needless to say, it was unsurprising that it had such an enormous impact.

His Gore Knuckles were still pretty brittle, and whenever he used them against gorels, they cracked apart like fragile stone. This wasn’t unexpected, given that he hadn’t yet upgraded either Gore Knuckles or Crimson Mercury. Once he upgraded both the tempering technique and the ability, the spikes should have the properties of wrought iron.

That still wasn’t the toughest substance in the world, but it would be a great improvement on the near-useless trash they were at the moment.

Create Water and Abyssal Depths had grown far less than they could have, but that was mostly because he was investing little to no effort into developing them.

And finally, to his surprise, the unique ring had grown in potency. It had taken so long that he had started to suspect that it would take forever to grow in power, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Frankly, he had severely underestimated the value this ring provided. The power boost, although seemingly relatively small, actually worked to help grow his abilities a lot faster, and the essence cost reduction allowed him to work more on his abilities, compounding into extra growth with time.

The item's value would grow exponentially with each additional percent in either the cost reduction or power.

Then, there was his star, sitting at 116% Essence Capacity. He had to admit he was severely disappointed with the speed of his growth, but he perfectly understood why it was going so slowly. First, he had 0 access to any kind of growth treasure. If he tried buying some to use semi-regularly, he would rapidly exhaust his savings, even with how much money he was earning.

He also didn’t have access to a proper gathering ground. Moreover, whenever he gathered, he mostly focused on replenishing his essence rather than pushing his star forward.

Perhaps most importantly, he was just not achieving much of note. The gorel pit incident, true, had pushed him a few percent forward, but other than that, he was just picking low-hanging fruit, grinding out the powers that were simply waiting for him to invest some time into them.

Sighing, he put his notebook back, overall pleased with his progress.

He continued sipping on his coffee as he watched the people walking by.

Before long, he spotted Sophia. She awkwardly waved at him as she hurried along, rushing into the passage. He gave her a half-hearted wave back, but she had turned around before she could even see it.

Not too long after, he spotted another person. It was Theodore, walking side by side with four other individuals. Every single one of them carried equipment that likely cost millions of dollars. Their weapons alone looked like their price was in the seven digits.

The first among them was Jacob, the blonde giant of a man, wearing light armor that revealed a good part of his body. Was the man a fire-affinity arch? Come to think of it, Freddy had no idea what the man’s powers were about, but he had presumed that the man fought in melee. No weapon was strapped to his side, but the fingerless gloves he wore looked made of exquisitely fine, silver metallic scales, likely indicating that the man was either a caster or perhaps a brawler. Maybe a mix of both.

The second was Phillip, the Asian man who approached him to ask about Sophia. He was surprised to see the man in the group, but it made sense that he would have ties to the administration if he was in the same party as Jacob. The man wore full plate armor, with a helmet hanging on his back, and he carried a large shield with a medium-sized sword strapped to his waist.

He didn’t recognize the final two—a short, Black woman with curly hair tied in a practical ponytail clad in what appeared to be pearly white martial arts robes and a slightly taller Caucasian, brunette woman wearing pitch-black leather armor. Both women carried blades, with the woman in white robes carrying a curved saber and the woman in black holding a sheathed dagger.

As for Theodore, the man seemed to have upgraded his style considerably. He used to carry a dagger by his side, but now, he seemed to have shifted to using an elegant shortsword instead, upgrading his light armor to one that provided medium protection.

Nobody from the group even glanced at him—not the three strangers, not Jacob, not Theodore. The latter two were probably ignoring him, but to the first three, he was an absolute nobody.

He felt frustrated. He didn’t believe that his reasons for avoiding the interview were just excuses, but he would have been afraid to attend the interview even if those reasons hadn't been there.

He was afraid of failing. He wanted to believe that he was at least becoming someone special and was deathly afraid of having that perception shattered. The day he tested himself against a serious challenge, he wanted to be ready. He wanted to have no excuses. He wanted to be prepared—both to succeed… and to fail.

Taking a deep, shivering breath, he down the last drop of his beverage. He let a few more minutes pass, and then, he walked down into the passage, entering the realm.

It was daytime, so very few people were waiting in the lobby. When he first arrived, the realm was still in turmoil after the last Crimson Twilight. But ever since, the gorel hives had stabilized, making the realm safer to delve into as the delvers finally managed to track the queen cycles.

He walked inside and swallowed one of the perception-boosting pills. They did little to boost his perception anymore, and he seemed to have built a lot of resistance to them. But in return, his perception was considerably sharper even when he wasn’t consuming them.

There were still nearly 80 of them left in his ring, and he contemplated selling them for extra cash, as he had mostly gotten his use from them and saw more value in freeing up some space in the storage.

He also still had three other medicines in his ring that he had no clue about, and he planned to get them appraised soon.

He proceeded down one of the paths he had been frequenting as of late. It was a relatively obscure hunting spot between two smaller hives. Reaching it was a pain in the ass as there were no carved paths leading to the section, and that was precisely why he liked going there.

Nobody wanted to haul the bodies over tall, unstable boulders. Thus, nobody would bother him while hunting.

Before long, he tracked down three gorel guards scouting the area. At that point, dealing with these things had become trivial. They were highly predictable, and their behavior rarely varied.

Each time he approached one, it would hiss and growl once it spotted him, rushing at him and trying to tear him apart. They did nothing to parry or brace themselves against attacks, primarily relying on their bulky physique and wild swings to break their opponents’ defense.

All he really needed was one well-aimed attack to end them. Moments later, he had three dead gorel guards at his feet, and his Gore Knuckles were thoroughly shattered. He recreated them with a small burst of essence, marveling at how little reconstructing his weapons cost.

They weren’t just cheap essence-wise; due to their construction as relatively thin spikes, they didn’t really consume much blood, either. With his Pool of Blood at 57% Progress and his undead body, he didn’t have to worry about running out of blood.

Once the Gore Knuckles stopped breaking so frequently, he would have quite a bit of extra blood, and he wondered what other abilities to develop to use his reserves. Mentally, he was still toying with the idea of creating throwing javelins or spears for a more reliable form of ranged attack, but learning how to use them properly might turn out to be tricky.

Swiftly racking the corpses, he made his way back to the lobby. Once he arrived at the passage, he discovered something he didn’t expect to see there.

A few parties were standing outside the massive passage, arguing about what was happening.

For some reason, a blurry barrier of sorts, looking almost like opaque glass, blocked entry back into the lobby.

He approached the group of people. “Hey,” he called. “Can someone tell me what’s happening here?”

“You tell us,” a lanky man said. We came back and found this thing here around ten minutes ago. I say it's probably maintenance-related.”

“You dumb fuck!” a short, ginger man swore. “Why would they block us off for that?”

“I don’t know!” the man retorted. “Why would anyone?”

“Can you please step aside?” Freddy asked.

The men complied, moving so he could approach. He placed the racked gorel corpses on the ground nearby and struck the barrier with his fist without using any abilities.

It didn’t feel tough per se, but the barrier had clearly absorbed the force of the impact.

He pulled his hand back and tried using a Flowing Strike. The impact landed with near-perfect timing, but the barrier didn’t even shimmer.

“Okay…” he said, warming his shoulders up. Gore Knuckles appeared on his fists as he activated both stars and landed another strike. The red spikes shattered into bits, and the barrier shimmered a bit, undulating like the surface of a lake someone had dropped a stone into. The effect only lasted a few moments before it calmed again, looking as if nothing had changed.

Freddy felt a much lesser impact on his arm, courtesy of his growing Thousand Wet Hells, but he had no time to admire his growth.

For some reason, someone had blocked the passage. Stuff like this did happen occasionally with public passages, and almost every single time, the cause was the same—sabotage. As long as it was closed, the Santorio Hub would lose money.

Sighing, he picked up the racked corpses and moved to a nearby boulder, sitting down on it.

What should I do now?

It could take a while for someone to crack the barrier open. The associated risk would hardly be worth it unless someone could keep the passage closed for at least a few days.

He could just wait around, but that seemed like a waste of time. If he was already trapped, he might as well use the opportunity to train in the passage.

He caught the image of a blonde-haired woman from the corner of his eye and turned to spot Sophia carrying a gorel corpse on her back. She suddenly dropped it as she just stood, staring at the passage.

Hmmm?

Her reaction was a bit strange. Sighing, he got up, walking over to her as he prepared to explain the situation.

But as he approached, her reaction only got weirder. Her nostrils flared as she breathed rapidly, and her eyes were wide open, with her mouth slightly agape.

Once he stepped within a few meters, he called, “Sophia.”

The woman turned to face him briefly, then looked at the opaque barrier again.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m pretty sure this is just sabotage. You don’t have to—”

“Liam,” she interrupted him. “We have to run.”

He scowled. “Do you know something about that barrier?”

“Just… Go and hide somewhere, okay?” She turned around to leave, but he grasped her by her wrist. “Let me go!” she yelled.

“Okay, first of all, calm down,” he said.

“No!” she screamed. “Let me go!”

“Tell me what’s happening!” he demanded. “Do you know what that is?”

“Liam, listen to me,” she said, staring at him with a crazed gaze. “That’s no sabotage. That barrier won’t go down for at least another three months, and by the time it does, this whole realm will be swarming with monsters!”

He scowled. “What?”

“That’s going to create an artificial break! Liam… listen to me…

“We’re in the middle of a terrorist attack.”