1% Lifesteal

Chapter 69 - Conflict

In the pure darkness of the night, Sophia tumbled to the ground, thrown back by the forceful blow. The flashlight that fell out of her hands clattered to the nearby soil and landed in a way that illuminated the crumpled form of the injured woman, part of the light falling on the crusted, bloody, torn armor covering Freddy's body.

He watched her bleeding nose rapidly reconstruct itself as she burned another spark, all while doing his best to restrain himself from forcing her to use another one. "I asked you a question!" he yelled. "Are you out of your mind!?"

"Why did you do that!?" she screamed as she moved into a seated position.

"What the hell do you mean, why!?" he shouted, uncaring of who or what might hear them. "You just tried to fucking kill me!?" he screamed while gesturing behind them to the still-echoing screams of gorels looking for them.

She looked scandalized by the accusation. "What!? No, I didn't!"

"What else could you have possibly been trying to accomplish by throwing me off a cliff into a horde of monsters! What did you think was gonna happen?"

"I expected you to know how to fight!" she argued. "If you hadn't cornered yourself at the start, you would have been fine!"

His jaw dropped beneath the mask of his helm. An incredulous grin of pure disbelief stretched his lips as he barked out a bewildered laugh. "You wha—that's your excuse!? So it's my fault!? We'll see how the authorities feel about that, you goddamn—" His words caught in his throat as he felt a sudden, searing pain spread through his back and stomach.

Sophia's eyes bulged as they locked on to the pitch-black claws protruding from his torso.

He turned as fast as he could, gritting his teeth in anger at his stupidity as he faced the ghoulish form of a pale-furred deviant that had overheard their shouting. A cold, sickening feeling radiated from its claws as the creature focused, and he felt his entire body grow numb as his guts rapidly rotted away at the inpour of death-affinity essence flooding in through the attack.

With a furious growl, he reached his arm behind its back, catching the deviant off-guard, as it had likely expected him to be unable to move under the paralyzing flood of essence. His hand landed on the creature's skull with a mighty grip as he pushed Hydraulic Flex to its maximum output, trying to crush its head. It wasn't enough.

It roared with pain as it doubled down on its attack while swinging its other claw at his arm. Its clumsy, reflexive swing was blocked by the metallic bracers while he ignited both of his stars and used Flowing Strike; the force of the raging wave of water reached his hand, transferring into his grip as both the tips of his fingers and the deviant's skull exploded under the pressure, splattering the nearby area with blood and brain matter.

His shaky arm grabbed the creature's arm and yanked it out of his back as he collapsed to the ground, barely staying conscious. A bone-piercing cold invaded his bloodstream, and the sound of distant ringing echoed with the woman's screams as she rushed to help him out.

"Stay away from me!" he yelled with all the will he could muster. "I don't need your help!" He watched her face turn into an expression of awed horror as he forced himself back up to his feet. With a moment of focus, he pulled the machete out of the storage ring and started cleaving away at the nearby grass. His talent barely managed to stop his bleeding.

"You can't heal from this!" she yelled as she grabbed his arm. "The death essence has invaded your body, and—"

"Shut up!" he shouted stubbornly, pushing her arm away. "Don't tell me what I can or can't do!"

With frightened steps, she backed away, and he waddled forward, continuously swinging at the grass below his feet.

The sense of time passing grew distant as he kept swinging his machete. A constant buzzing, blurry vision, and patches of pure black made seeing straight almost impossible as he wandered into the darkness. Several times, he found himself lying on the ground, not even knowing how he made it there, but each time, he forced himself up, fighting the weakness building up in his soul, body, and mind.

There was a light. Someone was shining a flashlight before his feet. It was that lunatic. She kept trying to help him, but he pushed her away, refusing to accept assistance from someone like her.

"You spoiled brat," he found himself saying, feeling more like he was remembering a conversation from the past than having one in the present. "Fifteen years of martial arts training?" he asked deliriously. "What a lax life… you must have had," he accused. "You must think I'm so far below you… I'll show you when I'm done healing… who you're playing with."

The woman said something, but it sounded like nothing but distant buzzing, like the sound of a mosquito flying around his ears.

"Shut up," he demanded. "Just watch."

Time blurred.

He felt the comforting sensation of tears streaming down his face. He was crying? Why was he crying?

Images of happy moments from his life interspersed with the sudden realization that he was fighting gorels.

Ignoring their bites and scratches, he swung the machete at them the way he cleaved the grass, feeling intense pulses of life force flashing through his body as they brought him back from the brink of death and dispelled the sight of his life flashing before his eyes.

At some point, daytime blinked the night away. Either it had come back surprisingly quickly, or he had been wandering in that state far longer than he was aware. The woman was also gone.

Be it grass or stray monsters, he kept cleaving and healing, feeling himself avoiding what he was sure should have been an inescapable death. Eventually, as if he'd suddenly woken up, the delirium dispelled, clearing his mind.

He couldn't help but snicker. "I didn't pass out this time," he said proudly.

Although his body was in one piece, the death essence hadn't been expelled from his body. He felt cold, and the feeling of sickness and weakness didn't go away even as he healed back to effectively perfect health.

Slowly raising his hand, he observed the way it shivered. He balled his fingers into a fist.

He still felt tired, and his mind felt foggy. Despite that, he forced himself to walk onward, willing his feet to take him down a path leading back to the passage. Although he was entirely lucid, he kept blanking out, as if he were failing to commit new experiences to memory.

The only emotion he felt was a cold, simmering anger. Once he got his hands on that woman, he'd wring her neck and bury her body deep in the realm, somewhere where nobody would find it. Her actions were inexcusable. She wouldn't get away with it.

Eventually, he made it to the second floor of the lobby. But he had no recollection of how he got there. Making his way into the stripping booth, he removed the loose pieces of armor that still clung to his bloody form and put them over the counter. They were so ragged and torn that most of them were garbage, but he wasn't thinking about that.

As he waited for it to be repaired, he sat down on the bench in the stripping booth right before the mirror showing his reflection. His skin was deathly pale and sagging—his eyes were sunken, and his hair looked flat, almost as if it had thinned.

"Maybe I could take a short nap…" His words trailed off as his eyes slammed shut, and he fell asleep.

***

Freddy woke up and opened his eyes. The cold ceiling of the infirmary welcomed him, its gray, joyless luster perfectly reflecting how he felt. "Fuck my life…" he muttered as he raised his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes and sighing deeply.

Looking around, he spotted the few dozen beds reserved for those who returned injured from a delve, roughly half of them filled with other recovering delvers.

He sighed. So much for not losing consciousness. Even if they hadn't treated him for anything, the mere fact that he was there meant he would be slammed by a hefty bill.

But he just couldn't muster the energy to feel angry at that for some reason. No, he merely felt tired.

His hand looked ghastly and deflated, and his nails were purple. He felt as if his entire body was sagging, like meat that had been tenderized.

A nurse walked into the room and spotted that he was awake. The woman told him that he was in a stable condition and allowed to leave if he wanted. He was handed a paper detailing the medical examination and… a bill, of course. But it wasn't what he expected to see.

The total cost was $34,586. Only around $15,000 was the hospital bill, the most considerable cost of which was the extensive tests they had put him through to see what was wrong with him, while the rest was the price of the armor repair. He didn't necessarily need to pay for the latter, but if he didn't, his equipment would be auctioned off to cover the cost, with excess money being returned to him.

Again, he faced something that should have infuriated him, but he couldn't muster the energy to feel that way. He merely signed the form and authorized the payment, then waited for his equipment to arrive. Once it did, it looked battered as hell.

The helmet looked as if it had been hammered back into shape after getting crushed, the jacket and pants had dozens of patches on them, and one of the bracers was just new, likely having to be replaced entirely. His footwear was mostly fine, though, proving its value once again.

Sighing deeply, he put the armor back on, replaced the hospital gown, and stepped back outside.

Once he left the room, he found himself in the second-floor lobby. There, he saw the lunatic who was guilty of all this sleeping on a nearby bench. This time, he could muster the energy to feel angry.

He marched over to her and flicked her forehead to wake her up.

"Ouch!" she yelled. "What the—" she started as she turned and came face to face with him. "Oh… Hi?"

"Don't you 'hi' me," he spat coldly.

Although he'd been fantasizing about the ways he'd get his revenge, for some reason, now that he was faced with the woman standing before him, he felt some of the anger deflate slightly. He was still livid, but now, with a clear mind, he saw a much more acceptable way to deal with her.

"We're going to report what you did," he declared, leaving no room for debate. "Either you cooperate, or I get my due myself. Your choice," he threatened.

"Before that, can I—"

"No."

"Just hear me out!"

"Get up and—" His words caught in his throat as the woman raised her hand and, with a puff of air, summoned a pitch-black prime vestige.

His eyes narrowed. "Where did you get that?"

"It manifested when you killed the deviant," she said as she raised her arm and handed it over to him.

"Are you trying to buy my forgiveness? This belongs to me anyway, you know?"

"I just want you to hear me out," she said.

He snatched the prime out of her hand. Looking at the prime's cat-like, black eyes, he asked, "What are your affinities?"

"Dark and death," it said, cackling with a shifty undertone to its voice.

"What talent do you hold?"

"If you accept me into your soul," it started the explanation, "you will be granted the power of haste upon the demise of a foe."

On-kill speed boost, he mused internally. Double affinity and a combat talent… He had read about the value of primes and how it was usually calculated. With these characteristics, it would sell for between one and three million dollars.

He looked back down at the woman. While he still held on to his anger, now it felt like trying to squeeze a bar of soap. Joy, that wretched thing, was competing for the limited emotional space he had in his mind at that moment. Well… she didn't seem to be intent on running away, he thought, sighing as he sat next to her.

"Speak."

She looked back up at him and then down, her shoulders visibly relaxing as she released a breath. "Thank you."

"You have nothing to thank me for," he stated as he slowly sat beside her, his actions resembling those of an old mortal man trying to take a seat. "I'll still report what you've done after our conversation."

"What!?" she yelled. "But—"

"But what?" he interrupted, turning his head to face her, the two holes in his helm revealing the tired, ghoulish eyes beneath. "Are you trying to insinuate that not stealing my prime counts as repayment?" He sneered. "Hurry up and speak. I want to go home and sleep. The fact that I nearly died because of you," he intoned slowly, "made me rather exhausted."

She bit her lip as she looked away, her hands clenching the hem of her filthy, torn shirt.

For a few long minutes, the two of them sat there in silence. He wanted to tell her to just hurry up and speak, but the fatigue dominating his body made even opening his mouth exhausting.

Finally, she spoke. "Have you ever heard of acute pain relief syndrome?"

He scowled at the bizarre question. His fatigued mind crawled over to the corner where he stored information on subjects like that, and once it retrieved the relevant info, his eyes widened slightly. "Shit…" he whispered.

Popping a pimple.

Cracking one's back.

Pulling out a thorn.

All three actions had one thing in common—they felt good. Doing any of those was frequently accompanied by an acute sense of relief. That relief flooded the body and mind with pleasure chemicals.

While this could result in bad habits, like a tendency to pop pimples whenever they appeared, it was rarely ever detrimental to human beings.

However, things became slightly different when ether healing was involved.

When a person suffered from some form of affliction long enough for the body to acclimate to it, an extreme dose of healing applied in a short period of time had a similar effect—with just one small difference: it was way more extreme.

Freddy had experienced this exact thing twice already. Once in the caverns, when he finally healed the last of the aftermath from getting tortured for so long, and once briefly after killing Matthew Vane.

He had read up on many subjects related to healing during his time in the library. One of those subjects covered acute pain relief syndrome—APRS.

Freddy himself had a relatively minor sensitivity to APRS. His reaction manifested with an uncontrollable urge to break down and cry, with a brief but intense feeling of euphoria immediately afterwards.

Not everyone reacted the same way.

Some people passed out, others shit themselves instantly, and some people… well, some people reacted the same as if they'd taken a large dose of hard drugs.

He thought back to the moment after Sophia healed herself. The gross way her face flushed with ecstasy and the way she shivered with the sensation. It was clear which category she fell into.

He scoffed once he finally put the pieces together. "Yeah. I know what it is. What are you trying to say?"

She hesitated as she shrank slightly, looking quite remorseful, at least on the surface. "I wasn't entirely in control of my actions when I did what I did."

"Mhm… I'm sure you weren't."

"I'd like to apologize. I wasn't thinking straight when I—"

"While the effect can be quite disinhibitory," he cut her off, "it's not like you were possessed by a ghost who made your decisions for you. You had your reasons, and you made your decision." He turned to look at her. "I've seen regular people take some hard fucking shit," he declared, a brief flash of pain flickering through the flinch in his eyes and a downward tug on his lips. "Some stuff makes people go crazy, but the effect of APRS would be closer to a speedball. I'm sure it affected your thinking, but it didn't make your choices for you. So why, and be honest with me here—why did you do that?"

She paused as she looked at him, a hint of fear playing through her eyes. She averted her gaze. "When I threw you off the cliff, I wasn't expecting you to be so… inexperienced."

"Let me ask you a question before you continue. Is your explanation just going to be you insulting me? Because if you plan on blaming me for it, just tell me now, and we're heading straight to moderation to report you."

She made eye contact with him through the slits in his armor. Her mouth opened, but the tired, dead look in his eyes shut her right up. She took a deep breath instead and slapped her cheeks. "Okay," she said. "I know that anything I say will sound like an excuse, but—"

"I don't care," he said. "If you want to make excuses, make excuses; if you want to insult me, insult me; just please get it over with."

Taking another deep breath, she nodded. "All right," she said. "When I threw you off the cliff, I wasn't trying to kill you."

"I'm sure you weren't."

She winced at that. "Yeah… Things went quite differently in my head."

"Mhmmm," he kept responding sarcastically.

"I thought that, right, you're super strong, but for some reason, you seemed overly cautious," she rambled. "Then I realized that, right, duh—you only saw me as a beginner! Maybe you felt responsible for my safety, so I wanted to prove that you have nothing to fear!"

His eyebrow raised beneath the helmet.

She continued. "My plan was to show my skills off and prove that we can take anything on! Even if we mess something up, we can recover perfectly if we don't die instantly. If you think about it, the synergy between our talents makes it only logical to take risks since the actual danger is minimal, relatively speaking, of course, but still."

The longer he listened to this woman speak, the stronger his headache became.

"When I saw you get surrounded…" she continued. "How are you so bad at fighting?"

He snorted. "That's none of your business."

"Look," she said. "I… I can help you! I know a ton about martial arts, and if you let me mmmmh—"

Finally, he could no longer tolerate listening to her. His right arm shot out, and he slammed her mouth shut. "Please stop talking." He sighed.

She looked at him, and her eyes opened wide. Likely believing that she had failed, she flailed her arms and tried to remove his hand, which was closed in a steel grip around her mouth.

Now that his fury had worn off, the longer he listened to her ramble, the more obvious it became—she wasn't malicious; she was just stupid. Well, stupid was harsh—it was better to say that she was inexperienced. Sheltered, maybe. Spoiled.

Her thought process was selfish and clearly from an entirely different worldview than his own. She was no doubt used to seeing elite two-stars, people who knew how to use the power they had far better than he did.

Still…

Malicious or not, she was a massive liability. Delving with her after the stunt she had pulled was out of the question. But she was privy to one of his biggest secrets.

He couldn't just let her go.

As he glanced at the squirming woman trapped in his grasp, he felt a pang of disgust shoot through his gut. In so many ways, this woman embodied everything he hated about archhuman society.

She was so privileged and out of touch with reality, willing to do whatever she pleased with the lives of others. His anger resurged when he had a thought—would she even get punished if he reported her? What were the odds that whoever her clan or family was would hear of this and pull some strings to set her free?

Or worse…

What were the odds that they would retaliate against him?

The very thought made him tighten the grip on her mouth. She squealed.

Should he just… take care of her?

He froze.

The thought had come so easily to him. Hell, it took no effort to come up with a full-fledged plan. Pretend to forgive her, take her out on another delve, and just… take care of her.

And just like that, the problem would go away.

But… he didn't want to do that. He didn't want to stoop that low. If he stepped on the path of doing whatever it took to further his goals… he would simply slot right in. Just another archhuman with a penchant for cruelty. The image of the pool of blood widening around the corpse of a grieving father flashed in his mind.

No… he didn't want to do that.

That wasn't who he wanted to become.

But the same problem still stood. He couldn't just let her go. Even if she didn't babble about his talent, there was a chance she'd reveal her talent and he'd get caught up in the situation by proxy.

The woman seemed to finally give up on her attempts to free herself, and just as her eyes teared up, he released his grip.

She gasped and rubbed her red cheeks.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'm not going to report you."

She froze. Her piercing eyes turned to him with a "Really!?" shining in them like a star.

He rolled his eyes as he leaned his helmet on his hand.

"But," he said, "our little party isn't going to work out. You're not the type of person I want to delve with."

Before she could open her mouth, he cut her off. "That doesn't mean we can't still cooperate."

There was still some use for this woman.

Although her reasoning was silly, she wasn't wrong. He was horrible at fighting. It was his greatest weakness. All he had focused on until that point was growing his power, but his ability to use it was lacking, to say the least.

His mind flashed over the details she mentioned. Indeed, he had royally messed that fight up. While she pushed forward, making her way into the mass of monsters before it could descend upon her like an avalanche, he froze until he was literally buried beneath a pile of bodies.

She knew how to fight. This was a rare chance to get his hands on tutelage by someone who was born and raised with a powerful background.

He leaned forward, resting his chin on his crossed arms. "Our talents synergize. Also, you can—"

"That's right!" she yelled, smacking her hands together as she seemed to remember something. She turned her piercing purple eyes at him with a gleaming madness shining through as she declared, "I think I can make us immortal!"