Blood Shaper - Book 4: Chapter 42

Walls melted, roofs began to rot away, and the earth around them began to collapse into miniature bogs filled with murk as the monster fired countless attacks, destroying the village as it tried its best to kill Kay. Destructive beams of magic were mixed in with exploding orbs that spread the essence of rot and decay when they erupted. Whatever insane change that had happened to the vampyr’s eyes when it became the eldritch monster had messed with its aim, but the sheer volume of attacks and the area they hit more than made up for that. Kay tucked and rolled under a sweeping beam that bisected the business behind him and began launching projectiles to intercept the falling bombardment of magical orbs. The tiny arms that had grown from the creature’s torso began recharging more of the beam attacks, and the balls of magic that formed over the multiple grotesque joints of the much longer arms began to grow once more.

“Holy shit, this is insane,” Kay muttered to himself as he dashed out of the way of the foul-smelling spray that washed over the ground from each prematurely detonated orb he hit. He ran at the creature, trying to get some hits in while it was preparing another wave of attacks. It shrieked at him as he approached, and half the growing orbs changed shape into elongated pyramids that immediately flew in his direction. As they impacted around him, they released nasty sprays of magical pus and gunk-like sabots, and he had to erect a pane of blood in a wedge in front of him to deflect more than one payload. As the fluids hit his impromptu shield, the blood began to hiss and bubble as the corruption tried to force its way in. Kay just tossed it to the side and kept fighting his way closer.

The transformed vampyr physically swung at him, its twisted fingers glowing with the same energy as its magical attacks. Kay leapt over the attack as it tried to slam him between its hands. He swung his halberd at it on the way down, but the instant his weapon hit the energy field the monster had surrounding it, the blood began to corrode away again. The arms began to fold along the inordinate number of joints like a twisted accordion, the magic surrounding the hands twisting into sharp needle-like points at the end of each finger.

The monster suddenly screamed with pain, and the powerful attack launched off in random directions, demolishing a row of houses and gouging a trench in the ground. Kay saw Alice standing on the thing’s shoulder and repeatedly slamming her two daggers into the monster’s neck over and over. It screamed again and brought its hands up to grab her, its arms twisting and following her as she leapt down before the monster’s fingers could wrap around her. One arm continued the chase as the opposite hand was slapped over the gashes that were leaking brown sludge in the place of blood. The chasing arm withdrew as Kay launched several attacks, and it was forced to block those instead of going after Alice.

She stopped next to him and turned back toward the monster, joining him in the tense staring contest. After a moment of silence, the eldritch being pulled its hand away, revealing rigged spikes of orange-brown scabs that had grown from the wounds, completely sealing them. The monster’s impossible wide mouth stretched into a delighted grin, showing off way too many jagged teeth.

“Got any ideas?” Alice asked him as the monster continued to stare at them mockingly.

“Kind of? The same Skill that lets me purge the eldritch shit that’s mixed with vampire bits to make vampyr works against regular eldritch bullshit too.” Kay looked away, momentarily overwhelmed by the grotesque nature of the transformed creature, “For whatever definition of normal you use. The problem is, I have to get some of my blood into that thing, and it keeps using its magic to disrupt my attacks.”

“Decay magic is one of the ways that blood magic can evolve if a Blood Mage focuses on those concepts. You can get it on its own, too, but a vampyr that evolved its blood magic into decay magic can definitely disrupt blood-based attacks. Can you give it to me somehow so I can sneak up on it again?”

“I’d have to concentrate blood on your swords to stab into it, which isn’t going to work during a fight this intense… Wait, there’s one thing I can try.” He started gathering more blood around himself from his Inventory Skill. “I’ll need you to keep its attention so I can concentrate.”

“It hates you way too much for that.”

Kay nodded at the twin pupils, each of them staring at one of the two of them, “I think after that stabbing spree you went on, it hates you just as much.” He saw the members of their party finish off the last of the other vampyr, literally swarming over one that seemed to have some kind of regeneration Skills that had kept it in the battle longer than the others. “Team up with anyone who’s free and buy me a little time.”

Alice took a deep breath before waving to get the attention of the other fighters. She pointed a blade at the monster before running at it again. Its eyes twisted to watch her as she approached, and it reached out slowly to grab her, like a child trying to grab onto a leaf floating by on the wind. Alice let loose a sudden burst of speed, flashing past the grasping hand and dragging her blade up the side of its arm. The monster screamed in pain again and began to flail wildly with its other arm; more magic beam attacks were launched from its two sub-arms, and the orbs began to grow from the magic circles floating above its arm joints again.

Kay threw several thick layers of barriers around himself so he could ignore the copious amounts of collateral damage sweeping through the remains of the village as he concentrated on his job. The monster was sending out too many wide area attacks to rely on; hitting it with blood empowered by the anti-eldritch properties in Purify Blood from a distance and forcing the magically enhanced blood into its body would be more effective anyway. Like he’d said to Alice, covering her blades in blood while she approached would be too difficult since he’d also have to be occupying the eldritch monster’s attention so Alice could get the drop on it. But if he could make something, he didn’t have to focus on the blood being used while he was the distraction…

First he pulled some of his own blood out of his body, his passive Skills replenishing it fast enough that it wouldn’t impact his performance in combat. Then he began to shape it, focusing on the blades he’d seen Alice using, daggers that were longer than normal but shorter than swords; he was pretty sure the correct name for them was dirks. Next, he concentrated on multiple Skills at once, using Purify Blood on the weapon he was making, Meld Blood to push the magic he was invoking with the blood into the same blood, and pumping large amounts of mana into one of his least used Skills, Create From Blood.

Stolen story; please report.

He’d only made two magical items with it, the two prosthetics for Tyuah that let her move normally again after the severe injuries from the quetzalcoatlus monsters and had seriously increased her power after she’d begun focusing on Blood Shaper Classes more. After that, things had just gotten busier and busier, and his plans to experiment with it had fallen to the wayside, especially with recent events and his increased focus on getting more tier-five Classes. As he continued to pump mana into the item he was making and the Skill that would let it become a true magical item, he refined the details of the weapon itself, making the blade thinner and sharper while keeping its density and strength, making the grip easier to hold, and more besides that.

The battle continued to rage around the demolished remains of the village and the dome of barriers Kay had made. He felt more than one attack hit his layers of protection, and several of them melted away into gunk as the decay magic worked to turn the blood into disgusting refuse. He’d made enough layers to keep himself safe while he worked, though, and after many minutes of infusing mana into it, he felt the weapon suck down a huge amount of his magic into itself. The weapon crackled with magic before settling, and Kay could make out several changes that had occurred as the Skilled finished the process.

The grip and tang of the dirk were now black, the color of old clotted blood, but without the sense of decay that came from corpses or the nasty magic of the monster outside. The blade had gone from being another chunk of solid blood like most of Kay’s creations with Shape Blood to a much lighter red, with an almost crystalline tinge to it as the blade faintly glowed with internal light.

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Purifying Blood Dirk

– A weapon made out of blood by Kay, Lord of Avalon. It is heavily infused with purifying magic that seeks out and destroys eldritch taint inside the bodies of whatever it cuts. Created with an intent to destroy eldritch monsters and rip out the corruption from the world, this blade and its magic will wreak havoc against any beings or corruptive influences from worlds beyond that clash with the established reality of this world.

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Kay immediately pulled down his remaining barriers after he finished identifying the weapon and making sure he’d done what he needed to do. He ignored his notifications as he ran toward the fight, mentally opening and dismissing the level-up message for Create From Blood so the flashing light didn’t distract him.

The village was now a complete ruin, with no whole buildings left standing. He could see several fighters pulled back from the actual fight and being treated for injuries while the rest continued to harry the monster, which was now covered in many more noxious-looking spiked scabs across its body.

Kay began sending blasts of pressurized blood and waves of projectiles from the mass floating over him, and the monster’s head whipped toward him as he scored several gashes along its side. “Alice!”

She turned and saw him nodding over his shoulder, and he sprayed blood at the creature’s eye to blind it. She dashed over and looked behind him, seeing the dirk floating behind his back out of view.

“I have no idea if that thing will be able to detect that this is a threat to it, so keep it out of sight before you stab it. Also-“ He formed two giant blocky shapes that he sent surging forward. The decay magic surrounding bits of the monster still ate away at the massive blocks, but there was enough mass to them that they still hit the creature and knocked it back, scrambling to stay upright on its disproportionate lower body. “Bite me!”

“What?” She jerked back away from him.

“Drink some of my blood for the boost. Now isn’t the time to be squirmish about drinking my blood!”

She stared at his outstretched arm, where he’d pulled back his armor so she could bite him directly, with a look of combined distaste and dismay. She didn’t let her emotions stop her from making the best decision, though, as she leaned forward and bit into his arm. The sensation of having his blood drunk was still weird, with that same undertone of familiarity as when he’d tested it with Lauren and a few times since then. Alice took three big pulls before pulling her fangs out and running off.

He soon lost track of her as he continued to play the distraction, laying into the monster as best he could even as it continued to seal its wounds with more disgusting scab grows, which were beginning to look like natural armor growing over its body. The scabs broke under heavy attacks but were otherwise quite tough and turned away more than one weapon from the other combatants.

The battle was turning more and more into a fight of attrition that was turning more and more in the monster’s direction as a greater number of attacks became ineffective. Kay’s attacks were more consistently getting results at the beginning of his reintroduction to the fight with more targets to distract the creature, but as the scab armor grew across it, it began to ignore the lesser fighters once more and focus on killing Kay and disrupting his strikes at it.

As was common in most fights, everything shifted in just a few seconds. Alice leapt up onto the monster’s shoulder once more, drawing its attention again. Several magical attacks shifted toward her, and its arms came back up to smash her, but she ignored all of that and vaulted at its face. She planted one of her dirks in the space where the creature’s nose had been and used it as support, flipping over it and holding herself up with one arm as her second, gleaming red weapon slammed into its single giant eye, right between its two grotesque pupils.

The eldritch monster screamed in pain, ten times louder than when she’d stabbed its neck, and it began to thrash wildly, tossing Alice off of it as she lost her grip. Everyone ran away from it, several people throwing themselves bodily away as it began to convulse, slamming itself into the ground over and over as it tried to drive away the pain inflicted on it by the magical dirk Kay had made.

Everyone pulled back to a safe distance and began to regroup as the monster continued its death throes. Bits of it from the head outward began to dissolve, simultaneously like a fire burning away overgrown brush and soap washing away a stain on a dish.

Alice glanced down at the red dirk in her hand, still clutched tightly. “Can you make more of these?”

“Exactly like that, I don’t know. Weapons that can hurt eldritch things, though, I can make those.”

She looked up at him with fervor burning in her eyes. “I want lots of them.”

“It’s on the list, but I have other priorities right now.”

“Sir!” A Blood Guard sprinted over; Kay recognized him as one of the people sent to wipe out the thralls earlier. “There were people being held in the building with the thralls. We pulled them out, but one of the Shatterplate people says more than one of them is going through a turning.”

Alice’s eyes shot wide open, and Kay grimaced. “Right, take us to them. I’ll save anyone I can.”