Chương 348: Face Thief

"That was a bit of a weird reaction for Jirnme… Did she not recognise me?" Holgod thought to himself as he currently lay in wait, his entire body and clothes turned into what would look like a blood slime to anyone else. No one could see him, though, as he had infiltrated the cracks in a part of the ceiling above, currently watching from above, investigating his suspicions.

Jirnme was a woman with a certain reputation, though it seemed like since he had last seen her, she had somehow managed to lose her bad infamy, as no one here seemed to know her past deeds–Holgod remembered clearly. This demoness had been nicknamed 'Mage Huntress' about ten years ago when he had last heard of her, and this title wasn't to be taken literally. As she only 'hunted' male mages, and wanted something other than their life…

Back in the day, Holgod had been one of her targets, and he was fairly certain that she had already struck several times in this underground, so she hadn't changed one bit, but when he noticed her approaching the blood ocean and went to speak to her, she acted completely differently from what he had expected.

The demoness not recognising him and seemingly showing no reaction to a powerful male mage weren't too weird, as he was a decision-maker down there, and she was smart enough to not mess around too much, but something simply felt… Off. It was similar to a feeling he had experienced in his youth, when he was just a regular trainee mage and hadn't yet discovered his affinity for fiendish blood magic.

He had been part of a rather average magic academy, and one of the end-of-the-year tests was to spend a few days and nights inside a forest. This was nothing too uncommon. Dropping students into dangerous places was a staple of those accursed, so-called places of learning. He had always found such tactics distasteful. They seemed to believe that a mage would want to use magic in battle. Healing magic? That was only used on the battlefield, according to them.

The fact that they never seemed to consider that one would only desire to study magic in the peace of a tower never seemed to scratch their minds. Regardless, the test went horribly wrong due to the presence of another mage who had decided to make these woods their home. To this day, Holgod didn't know whether this had been male or female, or whether they had even been human, or a sapient monster.

Whatever the truth may be, this mage had been a hostile one and had the ability to shapeshift into other creatures, as well as imitate the form of other people. Holgod only had a single encounter with this mage. The blood mage had been paired up with a girl whom he had been quite fond of at the time. A library rat just like himself, she didn't really take care of her appearance, but he had always thought she was quite pretty nonetheless.

If anything, the messy hair and horrendously crumpled-up cloth made her look better in his eyes–An opinion only he seemed to have for reasons he could never fathom. … This look was clearly the ideal female style. That was a hill he was willing to die on.

"Urgh…" He didn't like thinking back to this time, but the sensation was the same, and he couldn't stop his own mind. It was near the end of the few days, and everything had been perfectly fine. Since they were both always holed up in the library, they had long since read up on the bestiary relating to this particular forest, and they thus knew that they were safe as long as they allowed their mana to expand outward.

Since they both had large pools and well-trained mana, it meant that showing it off like this was all but guaranteed to scare away all the creatures inhabiting the forest. However, it also made them into beacons for any mage. Which actually helped them, as they were so easy to find that the hostile mage left them for last.

Probably also due to the fact that their mana would die down if they were to die, leading the wild mage to wait until the last moment, as their death might alert the useless instructors waiting outside the woods. Whilst Holgod and his fellow mage were separate, the mage struck. Since the wild mage was obviously much stronger and more experienced than the young Holgod, they extended a barrier silently.

Holgod didn't notice a thing, and the wild mage then appeared in the form of the unkempt girl, imitating even her mana to near perfection, and then proceeded to immediately play with their food. Thinking about it made Holgod's skin crawl. The wild mage had instantly begun to act 'excited' and began putting their hands on him, all the while wearing a disguise so perfect that even the current Holgod wasn't certain he would be able to see through it… The only telltale sign was this sense of uncanniness.

The very same that he had experienced when his eyes had met that Jirnme earlier. He hadn't acted immediately, trusting a vague sense of unease wasn't something a trained mage like himself would do. He needed information and proof. Which is why he silently followed the swordswoman around. She acted quite strangely. It felt like she was lost despite having been amongst the first group to arrive down here. Eventually, she casually walked behind a tent and disappeared from sight entirely.

That was one thing about her that made him doubt himself. Everything she did or said was always so casual that it almost felt weird for him to suspect anything. She acted with such confidence in every single action. It was incredibly difficult to doubt that she did, in fact, belong here. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Holgod's doubt quickly vanished as her mana signature also vanished entirely soon after, which was much less expected from a swordswoman like her, especially so suddenly. One moment it was there, clearly within his senses, and the next, it was as though she had been teleported far away, as he couldn't even sense a single scrap of mana.

"What happened?" He spoke to himself, but to anyone else, it would have sounded like nothing more than a quiet garble. The area she had gone to was also a dark one. He waited a few minutes, expecting her to sneak out with her mana concealed, but she never did. As such, he eventually came down and reformed into his true, human form. There was absolutely no one behind the tent or anywhere nearby.

The only way she could have gone away was by walking off to either side, but even with the darkness, Holgod should have spotted a grown woman like herself, but he simply didn't.

"How is this possible? Another one like that?" His first thought was that this hadn't been Jirnme at all, but another mage with similar capabilities to the one he had encountered so long ago. It seemed like this feeling of uncanniness should have been trusted, after all. Just like he had trusted it back then… On top of this sensation of oddness, the way the hostile wizard had behaved while disguised as the mage girl had simply been abnormal.

While such a tactic might be successful in overwhelming other young males, Holgod had never exactly been normal, even back then. So, while playing along, he had placed his hand on the copycat's throat and cast the simplest offensive wind magic of them all. The blade of wind beheaded the unsuspecting and unprotected wild mage instantly, killing them and causing their body to turn into a mess, unrecognisable as any living creature… As such, it definitely wasn't the same, at the very least.

"If I announce that there is a damned shapeshifter around, it will cause a panic. I can only tell a few trustworthy people…" He didn't know whether this person or creature had come down from the surface, or if they were a denizen of this underground. Regardless, taking them out was a priority now.

That's an incredible bath… Edible baths are definitely a great idea, especially when they are absorbed directly by your body. I have no idea how long I have been submerged for. I think it has only been a few hours. Do you confirm, Nara? It's been three hours, to be precise So no time at all, huh? It will definitely take a while to drain everything if I keep this pace, though. You should be able to gradually increase the rate of absorption as time goes on.

As long as the increase is slow and careful, you should theoretically be able to reach much faster speeds without any risks of losing consciousness due to a 'food coma' How much should the increase be, something like… This? You can push it a slight bit more Like this? That's perfect. You can increase by this exact amount every hour or so I'll have to make it so my dormancy stops every hour on its own, then…

Speaking of which, I came out of dormancy ahead of schedule, but I don't notice any nearby creatures that could have caused it. Can you sense anything on your end, Nara? As per usual, Nara had a better grasp of what was going on around me due to having a much better ability to use my inner energies than me. … It's because something walked by on the shore… A person? No, it seemed to be a gaunt humanoid made entirely out of unevenly crystallised blood.

It appears to have sensed that something was wrong and is currently looking at the blood right next to the shore. I suppose your absorption doesn't go unnoticed to such creatures with a strong affinity for blood Is that so? Do tell me if it comes close to finding out that I am here. Rather than 'if', it is a matter of 'when', as it is currently crouching and reaching into the blood not far away.

I suppose those Blood Wight thingies aren't concerned with attacks from Blood Eels or the Blood Kraken Eventually, I started to feel disturbances in the blood around me. Nonetheless, I waited for Nara's signal. Its right hand is going to reach in right toward your left shoulder in thee, two… With the right timing, thanks to Nara, I grabbed the creature's forearm and pulled it into the blood, quickly crushing its skull with my maw, shattering the crystal-like skull with ease as it was barely able to struggle.

The remains of the creatures were quickly devoured, as even in solid form, blood was blood, and to me, blood was flesh. So no traces of the monster remained after only about ten seconds. The commotion in the blood bore the risk of attracting some unwanted attention, but I remained still nonetheless, and nothing came. I suppose it was due to the fact that the blood ocean was still unlit.

If I had to guess, the creatures living within it probably used the glowing of the ocean and its subsequent lack of shine as a form of day and night cycle. They were probably far less active when it was dark, which might mean that they actually relied on eyes to guide themselves, even at the deeper depths. At least, I would assume so if the glow is the same down there as I saw on the surface. I wonder if–Oh my… What the hell did I just absorb? I think that was angel blood That was quite something…

I just made progress toward unlocking a new form, but I don't see any new ones in the list, so I definitely made progress in one that was already present. That's a great sign! I feel quite good about this. I'm more certain than ever that this ocean is the key to unlocking a new form. I just need to be careful since it contains the blood of rather unusual and powerful beings. If I am not careful, I might have a blackout from absorbing something too powerful…