Even as Miles rushed forwards, beginning the ascent from the basement level to the upper floor where the living room was located, he was unable to take his eyes off of what was happening through the walls.
He had called the horde rats 'something else', simply because he wasn't sure else to say when describing them.
The moment they had crashed into the main hall, they had no longer been 50 individual rats.
It wasn't completely clear through the Blood Vision but he could see that they had somehow joined together… through their tails?
By some mysterious manner or force, all 50 tails had tangled together, forming a complicated knot. It actually resembled a small ball of yarn, one of fleshy pink rat tails instead of thread, centered within a perfectly circular mass of horde rat familiars.
The tangled rats remained oddly still, the white crystals at the center of their chests having faded to the point Miles could no longer see them clearly, but not so much that it resembled the dead rats.
This in itself, while unusual, wasn't much of a problem.
In fact, if the rats were to remain in this state, with their mobility hindered and their hearts affected, it would've made things extremely easy for him
Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case.
Because immediately, the tangled mass of rats began to... change.
The flesh on their bodies and tails began to wriggle and squirm, as it slid off, leaving only the bare rat skeletons. These grotesque pieces of living flesh, moved, gathering and coagulating upon the yarn ball of rat tails, forming a larger singular mass of flesh.
The bones of the individual rat skeletons cracked and jutted out, remoulding and reforming within this mass of flesh, perfectly fitting the new and thicker form.
It was almost as if the rats were merging their individual bodies, and creating another...
Most unusual of all was the 50 faded white heart crystals, which began to converge somewhere around the knot of tails, coincidentally the center of this new body, gradually forming a single, larger crystal.
Seeing this mass of horde rat flesh grow larger and wider by dozens of centimeters, while Miles was not ecstatic, he wasn't that worried either.
But the moment this blood red silhouette started to show signs of reaching one meter and even exceeding that, completely ignoring all possible conventions of mass conservation, he finally began to feel the pressure.
Somehow, this growing mass of flesh was beginning to take the shape of a massive rat, a monster of a rat.
However, while he was worried about facing this unusual composite creature, of a type he had never seen or even heard of, Miles had no intention of giving up prematurely. This was a perfect opportunity to measure how far he had come, to learn and grow in battle. Besides, he could not ignore the potential experience and rewards of succeeding without even trying.
All he had to do, was win.
With that intention and then some, Miles called up the system status, even as he continued to make his way towards the forming monster of a horde rat.
The familiar transparent screen appeared before him with an even more familiar Ding!
[User: Miles Lykaon]
[Current Form: Kindred.]
[Kindred Class: Newborn Lvl. 4 || (5/10) Varying Blood Sources Consumed. Assimilation used. Please evolve first (or complete bonus conditions).]
[Disciplines: |Haemomancy Lvl. 1|- Barely Trained.]
[Kindred Generation: Too sparse to detect. Please evolve first.]
[HP: 10/10] | [Conditional Undeath] | [BP: 98/110]
{Blood Points(BP) in detail: (Personal) 10/10 + (Ripae Sanguine) BP: 88/100}
[Strength: 20] {+}
[Endurance: 18] {+}
[Agility: 21] {+}
[Intelligence: 75] {+}
[Wisdom: 81] {+}
[Influence: 1005] {+}
[Free Points: 3 (3 General)]
[Skills: General- (Magicae Aspectus-Inferior)
Haemomancy- (Ripae Sanguine I), (Sanguine Aspectus I), (Clavam Sanguine Ferrum I)]
[Titles: Discredited Heir of Lykaon Industries (+1000 to Influence)
Newborn Kindred (+5 to all stats but Wisdom, Kindred Senses.)
Cursed {First: Minor Thirst, Second: The Beast Within, Third: Sol's Hatred}
Conditionally Undead (Granted by the Ankh, the Key of Life. As long as the user is not burned alive or decapitated, any injury will heal, given time. It is still possible to become comatose due to total blood loss.)
Balanced Path of Life
Vessel of The Beast Within (Sealed)
Last Son of Lykaon (Inactive)]
Looking over his status, Miles could see that there hadn't been much of a change overall. While not exactly ideal, this also meant that he didn't have to spend much time going over all of that.
He could directly move on to the important stuff, distributing the free stat points.
The physical attributes that had improved quite a bit by simply levelling up, were directly ignored.
That left three other possible stats to focus on.
Considering that the blood spikes had become his primary means of attack, Intelligence and its relevance to ability control would definitely end up being important.
So he decided to put a single point, actually, after a moment's thought, two points, into the intelligence stat.
[Intelligence: 75 => 77]
Unlike when the physical stats were enhanced, this time around he did not feel much of a difference. At best, he could vaguely sense that his mind was clearer, perhaps a bit faster and sharper. It's effects could only be seen in practice.
Even with that, a single free stat point was left over.
Miles wasn't particularly interested in adding this single point to the massive value of Influence, especially when he had yet to see much use from this attribute despite having the highest value of all his stats.
This was extremely unusual, considering that the effects of Influence were supposed to be obvious. But for some reason, his attribute wasn't working...
Whatever the case, only Wisdom was left now.
Honestly, Miles found this attribute quite intriguing. Not only had it been involved with the blood source assimilation, which had revealed important information about Xavier's life and his ability training, but had even ended up giving him the ability of Ironblood Spike.
The conventional Fae serum of Wisdom was actually quite similar, transferring the memories stored within the bodies of the Fae into the human user (which made sense, as they were supposed to be extracted from the brains of the dead Fae.)
With Fae capable of conversing with humans being particularly rare, and the little knowledge obtained in that manner being generally unreliable, Wisdom Fae Serums were considered one of the few and effective ways to obtain Fae knowledge.
Unfortunately, there was a roughly 50/50 chance of these serums simply not doing anything, despite being injected. Experts theorized that the incompatibility between human and fae genetics had something to do with this.
And even in the cases where the serums were effective and did reveal some memories of the dead Fae, more often than not, they ended up being ordinary and daily memories with little practical use.
But there had also been numerous instances where completely ordinary individuals had ended up discovering eye-opening revelations, leading to massive rewards that ranged from uncountable riches to the revealing of unusual paths of power.
This made the use of Wisdom Fae Serums something analogous to gambling, with an extremely expensive cost for attempting, thus limiting this particular gamble to the rich and the wealthy.
Not to mention that fake Wisdom Fae Serums were widespread in the general market, as no one could complain if the serum yielded nothing.
With the added downside of using up Faetality even if there were no effects, this type of serum was sadly ignored by the majority of the public.
To Miles, while improving the wisdom stat might end up being meaningless, perhaps even a waste, it would be even worse if the Wisdom attribute of Kindred had some unusual ability or benefit and he had blindly ignored it.
This meant that he would have to attempt a test at some point.
And frankly, now seemed as good a time as any.
Was there ever a better time than just before a battle with a massive rat monster? A monster rat that was as large as a boar... nope, scratch that, it seemed that it was already closing in on gorillas.
Well, if there was a better time, Miles couldn't think of it.
So with a shrug, he put the last free point into wisdom.
[Wisdom: 81 => 82]
The number went up, and nothing happened.
But just like the last time he had attempted this, the lack of results was only temporary.
With a throbbing pain in his head, Miles suddenly remembered.
***
Pain.
That was what he felt as he came to.
A feeling of intense soreness and fatigue in his entire body, more than enough to hurt.
He could sense that he was sprawled face first over the floor, possibly having collapsed due to the exhaustion.
Gravel and stones dug painfully into his bare skin, his aching muscles burned and throbbed, but he couldn't care less.
Finally getting a chance to stay still, to rest, felt too overwhelmingly comfortable. So much so that the pain was ignorable.
And yet, despite every single part of him wanting to stay down, he forced himself up.
He felt a sense of urgency, a strong desire to get back up, perhaps it may have even been fear, about what might happen if he did not.
His hands shivering, his legs threatening to fail his weight, he somehow stood up with the support of a nearby stone pillar.
Resting from the effort, he looked around, finding the surroundings to be dark. The entire area was covered in pitch black shadows, without a single speck of light for illumination. But he wasn't hindered in the least, as he could see everything with perfect clarity.
The uneven rock walls and floor revealed that he was within a cave of sorts, carved and formed into something barely resembling a construction. Other stone pillars, similar to the one he was leaning on, were spread out as far as he could see, seemingly at random, supporting the roof.
A sudden pain in his legs forced him to shift his posture to one that would be less painful.
Clank. Clank.
A strange sound rang out, but he wasn't particularly surprised.
He lowered his head, gazing at the steel shackles clamped over his wrists. The sound came from the chains attached to each cuff, clanking, as the links struck each other due to his sudden movement.
These chains and cuffs served no actual purpose, as the ends had been shattered long before, leaving only a few chain links, far too short to be clamped or locked on to anything.
His eyes fell upon what was just slightly above these wrist cuffs.
Reddish-brown, frayed and scarred skin, rough and rocky to the touch. Flesh that had been damaged and ripped, over and over due to once tightened chains, but had healed over and over as well, becoming as tough as stone.
These marks fit in perfectly with the multitude of varied scars decorating his body, all of which were particularly noticeable on his pale skin.
But it would be false to say that the chains served no purpose. Well, it was nothing practical either. They had simply been left as a memento of sorts, so that he would never forget, so that he would never forgive.
Suddenly, at that very moment, he felt something appear behind him, a fearsome presence, one that birthed a sense of familiarity, as well as innate fear.
A rough voice called out, ringing unnaturally within his skull, "NATHANIEL! NO SLACKING! WE DIDN'T FREE YOU TO SWAY AROUND LIKE A DRUNKARD! GET TO TRAINING!"
Nathaniel couldn't help but jump a bit out of sheer surprise.
He had expected the voice, he had lost count about the number of times he had heard it in this way, but the way it rang within his head still caught him off guard.
Turning towards the owner of the voice behind him, he could see an unnaturally pale, muscular man dressed in a gladiator's loincloth, with a Gladius, a short sword, hung prominently upon his hip.
Like the man, no, the Vampire said, he had freed him, liberating him from both slavery and mortality. He had turned him as well, granting him the strength and power of the Kindred, in exchange for his loyalty and service.
This was Maximus, his liberator, his torturer, his trainer and mentor, his sire.
Nathaniel would never have sold his life away, especially willingly, having already suffered through a life of forced enslavement.
He would have never, had it not been for their common enemy. His 'service' was supposed to bring down the people he hated the most, the nobles of Rome, along with the Slavers, and the Emperor that allowed it.
He would gain power, in return for taking revenge. It had seemed like a win-win situation.
Noticing his childe's gaze upon his sword, Maximus smiled, a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "You know what you need to do, if you wish to be worthy of wielding a sword in his name. Are you finally willing?"
Nathaniel scowled and turned his back to the man, a sign of obvious refusal, as he shifted his eyes forward.
Maximus's grin shifted into a scowl, revealing two sharp fangs, but he remained still, observing his childe.
Forcing aside the physical exhaustion, Nathaniel raised his hands, pointing his right palm towards the target.
A metal doll, a training mannequin, standing a dozen meters away with several more of it's brethren.
(Clavam Sanguine Ferrum)!
Sensing his intent, the skill activated by itself, instantly forming and launching a spike of crystallized blood.
[-2 BP]
Whoosh!
The blood spike rushed through the air at a rapid speed, covering half the distance in a single second.
This was the easy part. What came next, not so much.
Immediately, his eyes flashed red as (Sanguine Aspectus) was activated.
His attention didn't waver, remaining entirely focused on the small drop of blood on the wall, now glowing within his Kindred vision, located directly behind the mannequin.
Calling upon everything he had, every scrap of willpower and spirit he could muster, Nathaniel willed the spike to shift to the right.
His true target was the blood droplet on the wall, the mannequin being nothing but an obstacle.
Boom!
The blood crystal exploded into a cloud of red blood shards, barely denting the forged armor of the mannequin.
The path of the blood spike had not changed by even a single degree.
Nathaniel had failed.
His body couldn't help but shudder in fear of what was to come…
And it arrived.
PAIN!
Overwhelming pain from the very depths of his body, from his skin to his bones. Everything burned as if set ablaze.
It was so agonizing, he couldn't even bring himself to scream.
Gasping in agony, Nathaniel fell onto his knees, having lost all power in his legs.
As he retched and choked, failing to release the pain even through a shout, his sire walked over, slow and relaxed.
His muscular right hand was directed towards him, exerting slight effort almost as if he was trying to crush the air or something invisible within his grip.
Even through the pain, Nathaniel knew what was happening.
This was what he had given up in return for freedom and undeath; his body, his control, his self.
This was the power a Sire had over their Childe.
With a wide grin, Maximus spoke slowly, obviously intending to savor his suffering, "Where's your spunk now, little Nate? Eh? Where is it?"
Nathaniel's eyes burned with momentary fury, as he gazed back in defiance, but a sudden spike in the pain quickly dissipated it, causing him to shift his eyes towards the ground in defeat.
With an instantaneous movement that he could not see through, Maximus's steel-like fingers grabbed his face and lifted his chin.
Try as he might, he could do nothing but stare right into the eyes of his sire. Lifeless, soulless, pitch-black, and merciless.
"I didn't give you the gift of Kindred life, the honor of becoming his blood, the blessing of the Great Chaos Father, for you to become a good-for-nothing leech!"
Slap!
A powerful slap hit his face, causing him to crash onto the ground. Nathaniel's cheek seemed to have been ripped off, as if he had been slashed with a sword instead of a hand.
[-3 BP]
And yet, he couldn't scream, he could do nothing but hold onto his sanity.
"The Great Father Chaos has blessed us Kindred, with the power of the all-knowing System. The powers it grants us, it will perform for us.
But it is up to us, as proud and great Kindred, to improve and adapt, to make the powers we have been blessed with, stronger, more efficient, and more powerful. The great System will even reward us for this.
You have been given the gift of the Haemomancy, a rare and widely-desired discipline. And yet, your talent and will, is only so.
If you wish to be worthy, while refusing the unpleasantness, you have to be strong. Unfortunately... you are not."
The iron-steeled boot struck his gut with immense force, causing his stomach to split open. Blood spilled out along with what should be some of his guts.
[-10 BP]
The pain of having his stomach split open was far greater than everything before, forcing him to open his mouth in a silent scream, as his vision faded and swirled with black spots.
"But do not worry my childe, for the great Maximus will train you."
Nathaniel shuddered reflexively, feeling dread at what was to come.
This was his life now.
What he had exchanged in return for freedom and immortality.
But besides the overwhelming pain, pain that would've made lesser men lose their sanity, he had to admit that it really wasn't all that bad.
His life as a slave had been far far worse. At least he had power and strength now, and all the injuries he gained would heal given time. Since the wounds were dealt by his sire, they healed slowly when compared to other injured, but at the very least they would not add on to the scars he already possessed.
It was true that he was weak for now, but with time, he would only grow stronger still. And as far as Nathaniel knew, he had as much time as he wanted.
At this realization, even as he lost consciousness, he couldn't hold back a small grin. It was absolutely eerie, out of place on the face of a bloodied body with guts spilling out.
Nathaniel couldn't wait for the future, when he would have true power, when everyone that had wronged him, would get what they deserved.