Wolf of the Blood Moon: A Blood Magic - Book 4: Chapter 7: Greed

Somewhere on the Bottom Level of the Cave

Vyxylor rubs the two crystals located in her main den with loving affection while muttering, “Don’t worry, pretties, I won’t let anyone take you from me.”

The large tricidic beetle stands at three meters in height and has a large shell on their back as they stand in a bipedal position, letting their other legs wave about their sides. But after hearing skittering coming in a rush from the entrance to her main den, her head jerks around to look, an expression of pure hatred appearing on it.

“Stay out!” she shouts, a hoarse tone entering her voice the moment she sees one of her spawn entering the cavern, feeling like the very act of something entering the den threatens her precious crystals and everything else in her collection.

The tricidic beetle spawn at the entrance skitters in place for a moment, seemingly unsure of what to do before it just stays outside and relays the information it came to relay to its mother. And immediately, Vyxylor’s eyes widen in absolute rage as she shouts, “An intruder?! Come here to steal from me?!”

Vyxylor lets go of her crystals while rushing to the entrance and grabbing the spawn by the head, her otherwise green eyes taking on a pale white color as she looks through its memories. But the sight she gets is not what she was expecting, and she ends up stumbling backwards, a conflicted look on her face. One of fear, awe, hatred, and greed all wrapped up in one expression.

The giant beetle plops down onto the ground, her legs making cracking sounds as they shift back to her monstrous form out of her bipedal one, and she immediately begins skittering around her den back and forth, occasionally rubbing up against some of the items in her collection to calm herself down.

The Princess. But my treasure… but the Princess… but… treasure…

Conflicting thoughts fill the simple creature’s head as she rushes back and forth, but after several laps around her den, the creature’s eyes begin to flash with a green light as greed fills them. Then a horrific word echoes in her head repeating the word ‘mine’ over and over and over again until she eventually stops at the entrance and screams a scream that would cause humans on Earth to have nightmares, “MIIIIINEEEEE!!!!”

As soon as her Demonic Curse of Greed takes over her mind, making her collection her absolute priority over any sort of intellectual thought, she rushes out of her den, slaughtering her own spawn for being too close to it in the first place. Then she continues through the nest while mentally giving out a single order to each and every one of her spawn.

“KILL!!!”

Scarlet

With my current set of skills, it doesn’t actually take me very long to get through the upper levels of the cave. And all of the demons in the cave aren’t much of a problem either.

At least, not until I reach the lower levels of it where I end up finding demons averaging about thirty to forty levels above me. But even then, the creatures are all unintelligent, so they don’t put up too much of a fight. And thanks to my rather vast set of legendary and epic skills, I take care of the things just like the other demons.

“I’m starting to wonder where the challenge is in this,” I mutter to myself, Tar having vanished at some point during my travels.

I continue to make my way through the cave for a while until things start to get a little odd. All of the demon beetles here begin acting rather berserk. As if something riled them all up into a frenzy.

Guess something doesn’t like me being here.

These things aren’t a demon I recognize though, so I don’t know what Sin they are bound to. And Tar didn’t recognize them either when he was here.

“I still don’t recognize them,” Tar suddenly comments, appearing again out of nowhere.

Welcome back.

“Thank you,” he says with a nod, only to vanish from sight when more beetles begin to appear charging down the tunnels of the cave. “I’m guessing you haven’t found the crystals yet. Considering how you’re still searching the caves.”

Unfortunately. If I had to guess, they’re probably located somewhere closer to the bottom of the nest.

Wouldn’t be surprised if the evolved demon leading the nest is the one with the crystals.

“They probably are,” Tar agrees as I begin tearing through the beetles with the martial arts Gramps has been teaching me. Something that is made increasingly easier by just how stupid these things seem to be. They’re also the perfect level above me for Predator V to work at full capacity without them being any higher than that.

I continue tearing the creatures apart until I finish off the last of the bunch, briefly feeling a slight amount of sadness at the thought that all of the life force from this nest won’t be given to me. Since you don’t get EXP while capped in level.

A rather annoying aspect of reality.

I wish the System made things easier on us. Why couldn’t it just let us stockpile the life force, or rather, EXP we take from other creatures when we’re level capped and just use it up all at once after ascending?

“Because a mortal’s body isn’t capable of holding life force without actually absorbing it,” Tar comments, making me frown as I continue walking through the tunnels of the cave. “So the excess life force just goes straight to the System itself instead, powering it.”

Well that’s just annoying. It also makes this feel like a waste of a hunt when I’m not getting anything from these things. Except for training, that is.

And from what Gramps has said over the time I’ve been here, a wasteful hunt is not one blood lycans should go on. There always should be a goal to a hunt, whether that be to feed the blood lycan with what they hunted, gathering EXP, training, or finding something.

“Well, blame the universe, not the System for that,” Tar comments, making me pause for a moment. “After all, the System isn’t what’s making you grow stronger or ascend. All it’s doing is guiding you.”

I blink at that.

What?