Chương 25: (25) B1 C25: Revealing Horror

I found myself staring up at the blinking stars of the night sky as my body flew through the air. The moons above were hardly hidden behind the thin canopy, and each of them were staring down at me with obvious disappointment. I ignored them, then focused on the strange daze hovering over my mind. I struggled to remember what I'd been doing. What was happening? Why did the right half of my face feel weird, like somebody had doused it in some thick liquid? Was I hurt? What was I doing before now?

Did— I felt my back slam upon the dirt of the forest floor, the impact stealing the thoughts of confusion swirling around in my mind. Twigs and dust shot up into the air as my body rolled into its side. Once my shoulders dug into the earth, I felt a flash of pain from the wound cutting through my back and I winced in pain. A blue light flashed in my memory, and I looked to my side to see the group of slavers standing a dozen meters away from me. No—almost. I almost saw them.

It was as if simply looking at them was difficult—Something was wrong with my vision. Was it too dark? Too lopsided? I slowly brought my hand up to my face and paled in horror when I felt the gaping hole in my head. Half of my cheek, the entirety of my right eye, and a good portion of my skull were nowhere to be found. I pressed my fingers further, gasping in disgusted shock when I felt the inner muscles of my cheek flinch upon contact with my fingertips.

When I brought my fingers away from my face, my remaining eye stared at the heavy mess of blood dripping from my hand. How was I even alive? I quickly pulled up my status menu to check on my remaining VP. Evelyn Moore Untitled Vampire Fledgling - Level 12 VP: 189 / 2. 3K (+90 /Min) BP: 2. 1K (+2, 500/Bite) BB: 0 / 200 (+20 /Min) CE: 550 / 550 (+40 /Min) 1215 Blood Points Required to Reach Level 13 How… the fuck… 189 VP? I was a shove away from death, let alone an actual attack.

I touched the side of my face once more, then groaned in disgust as I felt the uncomfortable sensation of my fingers pressing against the inside of my eye socket. It was so squishy and—grahh, gross. I turned my eye back up to the group of slavers. They'd thoroughly surrounded Lucia, yet I couldn't see anything more, as both the distance between us and the destroyed eye blinded me from their actions. Shit, what if she wasn't able to fight back? I needed to help, but I won't be able to do anything with my low VP.

I had 2. 1K Blood Points. That was more than enough to restore my VP to nearly full, yet it would leave me completely out of BP afterwards. My pale complexion would disappear and the Monstrous side of myself would pop up, and there would be no ability to hide that from my teenage companion. There was no other way. I pushed myself up to my feet. Of course, I still had the choice of simply running away, but I knew I'd never be willing to do that.

Maybe they'd simply enslave Lucia and I'd be able to rescue her again afterwards, but more likely they were looking forward to killing her. I was fully willing to kill and brutalize my enemies, but abandoning my allies was a step too far. I took a deep breath, then put everything I had back into my own body. As my Blood Points disappeared, I felt my flesh restore itself to how it was only minutes ago.

A curtain of crimson began to form around the flesh surrounding my eye, and soon I felt my cheek bloom to the fleshy state I was familiar with. Soon after, my sight returned to normal, though I felt a strange drain on my resources as the destroyed eyeball was replaced with a fresh one. Right, regenerating lost limbs required an extra serving of BP. Unfortunately, I felt nothing change around the wound cutting through my back.

The fierce stinging pain was still there, as was the wound itself, and every Blood Point I sent in that direction simply bounced away from the injury. I was able to feel the holy energy resisting my efforts, as annoying as it was, and I knew that wound wasn't going to be healed anytime soon. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Fuck," I whispered as I halted the circulation of BP slamming against the holy energy coursing through my wound. Well, on one hand, with the inability to heal that last wound, I wasn't completely out of BP. I checked my status once more and found that I still had a good 554 BP left, which meant I hadn't plummeted all the way down to Monstrous, just yet. I was just Decayed, though that didn't appear to be all that better.

Luckily enough, the new notification pending in my vision allowed me to finally bridge the gap of my knowledge regarding the known complexions: Oh No! You've lost enough Blood Points (BP) to lose your Pale complexion! New Complexion: Decayed (20% - 39%) You appear sickly and unnatural, with several features that betray your vampiric nature. Most creatures will recognize what you are, though the ignorant may simply mistake you for someone suffering from a grave illness.

So the order of Complexions for A Corpse's Complexion went from Monstrous, to Decayed, to Ghastly, to Famished, and then finally to Pale. While Decayed was better than Monstrous, a quick peek at my fingers told me that it wasn't much better. My black claws had returned—they always turned silver once I'd reached Ghastly—and the paleness of my flesh wouldn't win me any pageants. I seemed to have fewer wrinkles, though my fangs had grown long enough to be easily exposed and my skin was freezing to the touch.

I turned my eyes away from my hands, then looked back toward the fight I'd been out of for the last minute or so. Now that I had both of my eyes, it was much easier to see what was happening. Lucia had been completely surrounded by the others in my absence, though they didn't seem to be attacking her. The slavers that had been closest to me—specifically Hamund and Jonathan, the two front-line fighters—had turned around and faced my teenage companion. Were they not expecting me to return to the fight?

Their guards were almost completely dropped. Hamund was the closest to Lucia, and was currently busy trying to restrain her with both of his hands. Jonathan had stopped to catch his breath while the mage, Ismena, had turned the entirety of her attention on forming a binding spell around the girl. Only Roley was facing the forest, yet he'd already fallen to his knees in grief. They didn't think I was dead, did they? I mean, my wound was bad, so maybe?

If one of them had seen half of my face disappear, I suppose it would've made sense for them to drop their guard. I moved closer, smiling in glee as I hoped to take advantage of their false assumption. It didn't take me long to close the distance until I could hear them. Then, I dropped my speed and brought myself closer to the earth. Ismena finally completed her spell as blue chains of magical energy wormed their way around Lucia's shoulders.

Her arms were held firmly at her sides, but Lucia managed to keep her glare of determination even as her body was restrained.

"Who are you?" Ismena asked, her staff hovering only inches from Lucia's nose. Lucia stayed silent, instead choosing to stare at Ismena as if she'd killed her dog. It was a bold move, but not one that went unnoticed. Hamund, now free to use his arms for other purposes, smacked his gauntlet across Lucia's cheek. Lucia's entire head moved to the side as a gash of blood streaked across her face.

"Who sent you?" Again, Lucia stayed silent. Hamund hit her once again, but the teenager didn't relent. She simply stared at Ismena before giving her a smug smile. The smile vanished with the third gauntlet strike, but it couldn't steal the growing annoyance showing on Ismena's expression. I couldn't help but feel a smile stretch across my face even as Lucia turned back to Ismena with a bruised smugness.

Though as much as I wanted to stay and watch her annoy her captors, I knew it wasn't a good idea to sit back and do nothing while she was still in danger. I lurked to the closest slaver, Jonathan, and quickly activated Crimson Instinct. The world's colors disappeared in shades of black and white, save for the red color pulsing from his body. Although there were only two of the slavers within the skill's range, that being Jonathan and Roley, both of them were lit up like Christmas trees.

Jonathan was the closest of the two, and his attention was focused entirely on Lucia. Roley was too far away and too distracted to react to an attack, so I confidently stalked toward my victim. I crossed the distance within moments, momentarily abandoning the shadows as I moved forward, and although the Paladin seemed to notice that something was wrong, as his attention briefly began to turn away from the interrogation, I was already upon him before he had the chance to defend himself.

The claws on my right hand tore into the gaps in his shoulder armor for grip while the fingers on my left pulled his head to the side. Then, once I had him firmly in my grasp, I yanked him down to me and snapped my fangs around the side of his neck.

"Grahh!" Jonathan cried. He nearly lost his footing as his arms shot up to push me away from him. I growled at him, only half focused on his struggle as Jonathan's blood began to flow down my throat. The noise attracted the attention of the others, though by the time any of them recognized what was happening, the strength in Jonathan's body had already begun to fade away. The influx of blood seeping into my stomach was more powerful and far faster than any I'd expected.

The other times I'd feasted on my foes were slow, in comparison, and the experience left my mind buzzing with stimulation. The buzz continued even after Jonathan's arms dropped to the side and his knees crumpled underneath him.

"What the fuck?" I heard somebody shout in shock. I let Jonathan's body, now deprived of every ounce of blood, fall to the ground. I tore my gaze away from the corpse, my claws outstretched and my fangs exposed, as I looked back up at the slavers. Each of them flinched away from me as our eyes met. Lucia, in particular, stared at me with wide-eyed horror. I was sure that my complexion had already returned to a pale state after draining Jonathan of all his worth, yet the fangs and claws did little to hide my nature.

Roley, who stood the closest, finally turned his gaze away from the forest as he took a few steps away from me.

"She's still alive?" Ismena gasped.

"Never mind that, what the hell is she?" Hamund immediately replied. He turned to Ismena, "How did you not kill her?"

"I did! Or… I thought I did?" Ismena shouted, "You saw my Magic Missile strike true! There's no way she should've survived, but never mind that, attack!" Roley was the first to move. He brought one of his many daggers to his grasp, then charged forward. The man moved quicker than I expected him to, but his plan was painfully obvious. Once he was close enough to strike me with his dagger, he swung his arm to the side and attempted to stab me in the shoulder.

His attack was far too wide, as if he were trying to prevent me from escaping to his right, but his other hand was completely empty. His entire left side was wide open. I stepped forward, just slightly to his open side, then swung my left arm up to his chin. I watched as my claws tore through his jugular from below before continuing on to rip Roley's head from his shoulders, thus drowning the dirt in crimson as his limp body fell to the earth.

I looked back at the group, a smile growing on my face as the fear on their faces only grew.