Somewhere on a planet of vast deserts, stretching as far as the Vampiric eye can see, was yet another Ring Bearer: Second Scion; the second and only remaining kin of the Original Vampire, Scion; so to speak: yet another being close to the level of the Original Vampire, who was an existence way above that of the gods; much like normal Shadows.
Although the weather of the planet seemed too harsh for any living thing to survive here, nature always found a way; because, there was beast life all over the planet, thriving in the harshest of conditions, evolving past their limits to survive in their harsh reality. The temperature was enough to boil and evaporate water, however, for our Ring Bearer, it was no problem as he had learnt his Master's Magical Arts of the Origin Energy. Through which, he could manipulate all physical conditions around him that corresponded to the base elements of the universe.
He had been on this planet long enough ever since waking up to a massacre of Vampires around his seemingly lifeless body at that time; nearly 2 months had already passed. During this time, he had been following in the steps of his Master, Scion, who taught him various Martial Arts and Techniques that would surely aid him in the quest of survival from and hunting the other Ring Bearers. For someone who had only received part of his memories after he had awoken, he seemed to follow along quite well and without any questions.
Whilst he learned to avoid relying on the System due to his Master's wishes, he traversed the vast—and mostly dead—wastelands in search of a way off of the accursed planet that he was on. Second had encountered quite a few other beings on this planet, but he did not care for them. He only needed to hunt and kill dangerous beasts, sell their remains, and save up enough money to buy a ticket out of this planet; to a degree, he was very close to this goal of his. He only needed the magic cores of either an A-Rank beast, or a dozen of B-Rank cores; to buy a Warp-Ship for himself with the coordinates of Nyxterra: the Vampire planet.
And, that was exactly what Second had set out to accomplish: he was looking for an A-Rank beast.
He wore nothing but robes and rags, covering his entire body, revealing only his charming countenance. He did not carry anything with him either; other than his special ring that allowed him free movement in the scorching heat of the direct starlight on him, and a small bag slung across him.
He moved from his vantage point, on top of a hill, when he heard an explosion from a short distance of a kilometre from his position. It seemed like two powerful beasts were fighting each other. Getting a move on, and picking up his pace, Second moved at a very fast velocity, reaching the fight in less than 7 minutes. He was using his already nimble body, enhanced with his attribute points, and the Ki that he used to power himself even further.
It was through the impeccable teachings of his distinguished Master that he was able to grow strong very quickly. The inherent Skill of the Original Vampire, [Drain Touch] helped him the mostmost, allowing him to absorb the power of living beings and keeping it for himself, raising his attributes.
The two beasts were in sight now; both of them were A-Rank, and they seemed to have been fighting for a long time; the devastated area around them and their own bodies, wounded beyond normal regenaration, spoke of that tale. On top of them being A-Rank beasts, the two of them were humanoid: a generally intelligent type of beast in the shape of a human.
The one on the continuous assult was a beast with red, scale-like skin—like that of a serpent—and a robust physical appearance of monstrous muscles that bulged with extreme tension after enduring such a long battle. Its face was unlike any other: after all, it was not really a face. It was more like hemisphere, tilted on the y-axis, and growing multiple seething tentacle-like appendages that hid a horrid mouth of minute teeth that numbered in the hundreds, spiralling downwards.
The other beast resembled a bird more than anything. It had mud-coloured feathers on its arms that extendted into wings, like that of a bat, with highlights of green. As it struck its wings against the wind to move back, and away from the attack, its chest began to swell up as it took a deep breath; releasing its breath, it let out a sonic boom that was painful for Second to hear, due to his Vampiric hearing on the level of the Original, even from a safe distance away.
The bird did not seem to have any redeeming features except its abilities related to Sound. And, eventually, it gave out, allowing for the red beast to finish the batlle, killing and mutilating the other beast, before letting out a mighty roar to declare its triumph to the denizens of the desert, from the valley in which it fought; the roar echoed outside of the valley, and to Second.
By then, he noticed something strange... the red beast fell on its knees and it tried to stand back up, but stumbled. It started to retch until it finally coughed out a large quantity of black blood and its body started to shake and shrivel. It was a phenomenon that Second was quite familiar with; it involved only beasts that were close to a certain point where they would no longer progress with their current physique and abilities, and they had endured a lot of battles. By fulfulling these conditions, the beast would then feast on other beasts' magic cores to absorb even more power and the essence of the other beast, so as to push itself even further to evolve onto the next stage.
But, right here and now, the beast had not consumed the core of the other beast before evovling, so it just needed that final push that it could only get from an arduous and harsh battle to the death. And thus, it had succeeded, surviving and living another day at the price of another's life, and finally started to evolve. It might seem like good news for the beast since evolution comes only with benifits other than the small chance to be in control of a completely different body than the one the beast was most used to, however, the time and place of where it evolved was what mattered the most.
The beast that undergoes evolution is incredibly vulnerable and can not even try to fight back with the immense amount of pain which comes with the evolution if another being were to attack it when it was going through the same. The red beast, named [Drake Leech], was on track to now become an S-Rank beast—if it could survive the evolution process without any interference, that is.
Second, through the teachings of his Master, was honourable and not shy to face a hard fight: to grow stronger. He surveyed the surrounding area before jumping to the beast. However, he did not attack the evolving beast, or do anything to disturb it. But, he did, however, extract the A-Rank beast magic core from the bird beast, 'Now, I have enough money to get off of this shitty planet... . But, I have an S-Rank beast at its last legs, offered to me, in a platter. How could I just let this opportunity to get an S-Rank core and grow stronger go?'
As he back was turned towards the [Drake Leech], the latter pounced at him, hoping that it could end the strange human without further delay to ensure its own safety while evolving. But, to its surprise, it landed on the ground again with nothing in its grasp. Second had used and advanced form of his Martial Skill: [Demonic Dominating Stride] to swiftly, almost instantly, move around the beast and appear behind it. But, again, he did not attack, and instead, just left the area after storing the beast core in his System's inventory.
As he left the area, he could only hear a whisper in the form of a snarl from the beast, "Hu...man."
It was pretty well-known that beasts with a certain level of intelligence were capable of communication and learning things. Through experimentation on lower rank, humanoid species of intelligent beasts, it was declared that beasts could be tamed via a great array of methods, depending on the beast.
Second only uttered a few words in response before he was out of the valley: "I'll come back for that S-Rank core, you leech. Don't mind me using you as a training dummy."