Nightmare System - Volume 1 Chapter 43 The Bloodhound

Slow steps echoed in the night with pairs of bloodthirsty eyes followed the two. The wind howled and a pair of eyes hiding in the bushes revealed itself with its mouth itching to get a bite. This was a creature with a slender, long body with fangs as large as the head of the beast and claws that protruded from the strong paws in fervour. Its body was black and coated with thick fur which gave the creature almost a bear-like look.

“Brother, there is another one. Let me take care of it,” the girl said with ragged breathing between her words. Her body seemed to be covered in blood and mud. Her clothes were completely worn out and torn apart in places.

Leon didn’t answer, he slowly turned his head until he saw the creature growling at them in his peripheral vision. A tree branch on the ground suddenly flew at the creature in incredible speed and impaled him on the ground. The silence ensued for a while and the two continued staggering as they walked.

“We left an army behind,” Leila said after a while, breaking the silence. “We had shelter, baths, fresh clothes and-”

“Blood?” Leon replied with a harsh tone, locking his eyes with hers.

Leila nodded her head. “I need it, Leon, it’s not something-”

“It’s all your fault!” Leon then roared with anger. “You always smell of blood and draw all those beasts to us! We haven’t had a good night’s sleep ever since we left that murderous beast with a befitting name, Hell. It has been a week! I still stuck with you even after being reduced to something unrecognisable with those Greenskins attacking us, but still, you want to go back, now?! After all we’ve gone through?!”

His voice again echoed in the dead of the night into the jungle. Leila hung her head low and didn’t reply. It was both of their decision to leave with an impulse after seeing the death of innocent lives. But it seemed these Greenskins varied to an incredible extent, with some of them being almost primitive and only aware of how to kill other things. There have been historical beasts bothering them along the journey quite frequently, too. They were used to killing strong but slow monsters such as T-Rexes, especially using Leon’s Telekinesis, but smaller and deadlier creatures who were fast and hunted in packs weren’t that easy to extinguish. Not only that, once Leon was out of mana, they had barely survived even a Greenskin village. The only reason Leon was alive was because of the Vampiric Regeneration ability Hell gave him.

“Answer me!” Leon wanted to vent, sleep deprivation was horribly getting to him. Leila, however, who relied on her brother most of the time was being the level-headed one here. They were also both hungry, Leila knew that, too.

Leon, after a few moments, also caught himself before slipping further into insanity born from hunger and deprivation of sleep. The way he treated his own sister was unimaginable, blaming her in this circ.u.mstance they were in.

“Let’s just walk a bit more, then we can rest,” Leila said, met by a small nod of agreement from Leon. They continued their path in silence for another hour when Leila’s Undead Vision caught the edges of a portal Hell used to transport his army along the journey. Of course, the portals were dealt by Aurus, but perhaps perhaps they could do it, too! Leila, in excitement, turned to Leon:

“There’s a portal here, brother, perhaps you can-”

“Bring me to it.” Leon’s short by quick reply had caught her by surprise, but she did as told. The portal revealed itself amongst the trees soon after, it was only more than 100 metres away from them.

“Can you make it work?” Leila asked.

“I don’t know,” Leon said as he collapsed on the podium and checked his stats:

Player: Leon

Age: 28

Occupation: Warlock

Level: 38

HP : 157/1470

Mana : 478/3150

“I’m almost out of mana,” he mumbled to himself and hoped that since his Telekinesis used mana to affect objects, he could somewhat power the portal with his remaining mana. However, he knew that if they were transported to a more dangerous place, it would be game over for them.

“Do it now,” Leila said and took out her dagger. There were multiple enemies similar to that cougar creature revealing themselves once more. These were the smaller, more troubling foes. Of course, it would be very hard for them to kill a vampire and a human with Vampiric Regeneration, but they only needed to wear the two out a bit more. Lower-ranking vampires cannot regenerate separated appendages, either, so they couldn’t simply endure the beasts. Around a dozen of these creatures as large as street dogs were slowly getting closer, ready to lunge at her. “Jungle dogs”, Leila called these.

*Mana: 750/1950*

Leila was doing a bit better with her mana, she understood that the two needed to leave this place, hopefully with this portal.

One of the jungle dogs finally bore its claws at her and its frantic running sent shivers down her, who was now quite afraid of the beasts after being bitten by them multiple times. The bites hurt, they hurt so bad. She never understood how Hell could plunge that sword into himself, she couldn’t do that albeit being a vampire. The pain was just too much.

The jungle dog aimed to attack her ankles with its claws but with Leila’s agility, it missed and the dagger was planted into its skull. It was a perfect kill, that was achieved in the fraction of a second. She steadied her breathing, the remaining eleven jungle dogs took that as a sign and followed suit. She threw her final three throwing daggers with the Multiplier skill in effect. 30 throwing knives suddenly appeared in the air and punched holes in those beasts. They howled in pain and two of them immediately collapsed with the knives sticking out of their eye sockets. Although half of the multiplied knives missed, the ones that hit either killed or wounded half a dozen. She used her Shadow Reach to kill the confused but tougher looking jungle dog in the front, the shadow suddenly sprung from the ground to form a dagger and she stabbed it.

*Mana: 400/1950*

“Leon, open it!” she yelled at her brother. She was hearing the messages of the system about the killing of these creatures.

She watched his brother grunt as he poured all his mana into his Telekinesis to open up a path in space by pushing the ability through the portal. Some sparks seemingly caused by the friction between the portal and Leon’s Telekinesis suddenly turned into somewhat of a path ahead with the crackling sounds of electricity. The portal was distorted and looked unstable, but the path seemed to be open for now, Leon’s struggle hadn’t been futile. They wasted no time as both of them jumped into the portal.

“Did we do it?” asked Leila followed by a short gasp. Leon collapsed on the ground in relief. They had found themselves in a palace-like structure it seemed with servants all around them. Leon followed suit and succ.u.mbed to sleep soon after.

“State your names, intruders!” was the last thing she heard as the sweet land of sleep took a hold of her.

When Leila woke up, she found a guard waiting at the door who immediately alarmed someone to take a look at her. She was wearing plain clothes and lying in what could be described as a hospital bed with the setting around her. She was even given her own room. She looked at her right, a bag full of blood seemed to be feeding her through a rubber tube puncturing one of her veins. She soon started feeling the pain and got rid of the tube in a rush, rubbing the punctured vein healing in the meantime.

“Stay on the bed!” the guard yelled. He wasn’t holding a weapon, but a type of curved sword could still be seen attached to his belt. This guard had rather long ears and was wearing a dark green top with scarlet jeans. These colours symbolised a certain nation they had learnt about before. It was indeed exactly what Hell ended up wearing when he returned from his small trip back then.

“You are Menaroans!” Leila finally shouted as she shook off the drowsiness she woke up with.

“You will stay on the bed!” the guard commanded. A nurse finally came in to take a better look at her. As much as she was suspicious of these people, it didn’t seem they were treated badly here, so she let them.

“Where’s my brother, Leon?” she asked.

“He is a bit malnourished and tired, but should wake up soon.” The nurse’s eyes screamed suspicion at her, but she still answered. She only needed to confirm her status and then she could finally be done with this stranger. “You look all right, wait here,” she said after examining her and promptly left the room.

“Where are my clothes? How long was I asleep for?” Leila asked in quick succession. “Is this place Menaroa, then?”

Before the guard could say anything, a soothing female voice answered from the other side of the door as she entered. “Welcome to Menaroan Congregation, my name is Nile, and you have been asleep for half a day.”

Nile was an important figure to the congregation and right-hand of the Bloodhound. She had wavy, brown hair that poured on her chest from both her shoulders. She had a smile that mesmerised all, the guard at the door was unable to pull his eyes from her. He seemed heartbroken when she was dismissed by her a moment later.

“I wish to talk with you, your brother is also all right,” Nile said and sat on the side of Leila’s bed.

“I assume you want to know who we are.”

“Indeed.”

“My name is Leila, my brother is Leon. We aim to kill the Djinn Queen,” Leila said with a stern face. They had no other way to leave this place, so they truly did have to kill their targets.

Nile was dumbfounded as she held her laughter in. “You two will kill the Djinn Queen?” she asked.

“Look, can I get some proper clothes and see my brother first? I’m sure we’ll have enough time for more questions later.” After shaking off her drowsiness, she was worried a lot more about her brother.

“Sure, although, trying to run away before your questioning will result in your untimely demise. Please take that into consideration.” Nile had said that with a blooming smile and her usual soothing voice. She, being so relaxed could be thought of as confidence, too. Leila didn’t think much of answering her questions after she saw her brother.

Nile provided some clothes to Leila and allowed her to change into them before seeing her brother. She was again given similar clothes to her old ones, laden in black, perfect for her. The room at the end of a hall was reserved for her brother. He was also administered a blood bag like her, but was still unconscious and looked to be in pain.

“You idiots, he’s not a vampire!” Leila yelled and ripped the rubber tube out from Leon, surprising the physician checking his condition. Vampires would basically use the blood of others as fuel for themselves, but mixing blood in a human would result in a catastrophic reaction, the blood of the host trying to destroy the foreign blood entering the system. It was unknown for how long her brother was enduring such pain. Unfortunately, they didn’t pick Leon’s type of blood, which was O.

“This is my patie-” the doctor was slapped by Leila. “Leave him alone, you obsolete bastards!” she shouted. Nile watched the scene play out as the doctor finally asked:

“You reacted so well to blood and he also heals like vampires, how is this possible?” Sure, they didn’t conduct a thorough examination on him back then, but what else around here healed like that?

“Just bring something else, prepare a solution instead of a blood bag, do what you would do for a Menaroan or a human,” Leila said and examined Leon’s body. He seemed to have healed on the surface, but she didn’t know what this unknown blood transfusion could do to him. The doctor left without his answer, but Nile continued asking.

“Why does he heal like a vampire?”

Leila was fl.u.s.tered about making sure her older brother was all right, so she didn’t feel like answering the question for now. Remembering that savage Hell. She did think she overreacted before considering the circ.u.mstances, but her brother was even sterner than her, in the end. Not only that, he was always cautious against Leila ever since that arsehole revealed that she was about to bite her brother when she first turned.

“Answer the question.” Nile urged.

“It was our other friend, he gave him the ability.”

“He granted him the ability to heal like a vampire? Who is this man?” Nile had seen many interesting abilities, but no one could just grant abilities unto others.

Leila took a deep breath and thought about how it had been a very tiring week. Or was it the 8th day today since they turned back on Hell and his army?

“His name was Helleborus and he is a bit of an eccentric,” Leila started telling her story. However, the first few words had already shocked Nile.

“Are you familiar with Lord Hell?”

“Well, yes, we came to this world together,” Leila truthfully answered.

“Stop right there, my King will want to hear the rest. You will be honoured guests from now on, please do ask whatever you may require from the guard outside,” she said and rushed out to find King Praneo, but not before disciplining the guard in the hall.

“Huh?” barely could react Leila. Although Nile said they were now honoured guests, Leila began worrying about what Hell may have done here. What if it was a tactic to keep her here further? She tried to wake Leon, but it seemed impossible and it would be hard for her to run while carrying her brother. She would, then, buy time since there was obviously information about Hell they wanted at the very least, whether they be friend or foe.

She even tried to slap Leon awake in the meantime, but there was, unfortunately, no response. He needed more time to rest. Eager footsteps soon heard at the door with the guard exclaiming in shock: “My King!”

“Is it you?” an anticipating voice yelled into the hospital room. “I heard you have news about Hell!” The man entering the room had a rather large frame compared to Menaroans, it seemed he was graced more with strength, instead of speed nor agility as one would assume from looking at a Menaroan. His eyes looked ruthless and he had an aura around him that almost confirmed a high number of corpses created by his own hands.

“Tell me about my pal! We have received the news of Lirger’s death this morning! What is he up to now?!”

At least they weren’t hostile. Leila began talking about Hell’s plans to kill Pandora which should have already taken place by now. “Well, you see, after we stopped for the army to rest a bit” Leila counted the events until this point, with less focus on their bitter break up as a group.