Rising from the chair, Alina realized the wisdom in searching for additional supplies. With an intention to leave this mysterious place, she knew that preparation was key to surviving in the outside world. She felt caught in limbo, lacking basic necessities like food and water, yet aware that the unknown dangers beyond might render her saber inadequate.
Her search through the skeletons and bookshelves yielded only a multitude of books, none of which held any practical value. They were filled with propaganda and dogma, their pages torn and content rendered useless. Even potential leads, like diaries, were found in a state of disrepair, their secrets lost to damage and decay.
It was as if the whole condition was prepared to make sure that whatever happened, Alina would choose to go outside. Yet, Alina considered the possibility of facing threats beyond the capability of her saber. Perhaps a rifle would be more suitable, something easily wielded by the average person, at least in the United States.
This was merely hopeful thinking on her part, but the thought persisted. Practical footwear was also on her wish list; navigating the rubble-strewn terrain barefoot was far from ideal.
After thoroughly searching the temple, she unsurprisingly discovered nothing of immediate use except for a few books. Among them were "Sanguish Advanced Hematic Bending Part V," "Basic Sanguish Technical Manual," and "House of Ingrid Dogmas."
While she had no immediate plans to delve into the complexities of hematic bending, having these texts was better than leaving empty-handed. The latter two volumes offered insights into the distinctions between vampires and humans, which might prove enlightening.
So, through a decrepit doorway, Alina traversed through the hallway with a saber in her hand. As long as it was a mere zombie, Alina was confident she could face it. Let's just hope that nothing more than a zombie appears. However, she had a glimmer of hope that this place might be more than a temple.
Her intuition proved accurate; the dark hallway branched off into several rooms, each in varying states of disrepair. Some were obstructed by debris from collapsed ceilings, while others remained just functional. Among these, a room that particularly caught her attention was what appeared to be a barracks.
The wooden beds were in a state of disrepair, with visible mold growing on them. However, a metallic locker on the wall provided her with a sense of comfort, knowing that this might contain something, so, Alina opened the metal locker.
She almost shrieked in horror when what she saw inside the locker was human skeletons. She then threw out the human skeleton from the locker in disgust. However, that was it, the locker was empty.
Who the hell throws a dead body inside of a locker?
Walking further down the hallway, Alina discovered a series of rooms that seemed to have served various purposes, from storage areas filled with broken furniture and faded textiles to what appeared to be a makeshift infirmary, its medical supplies long since plundered or decayed beyond use.
Still, what surprised her was the equipment on the infirmary, one would expect some kind of bottled potions or something like that, but no, she found tablets of unknown origins scattered on the floor alongside with modern hemostatic bandages. For a cultist place, this was unexpected. Still, in that most unexpected place, she found what she wanted, a boot.
The boot was attached to a fresh body buried beneath the rubble in the makeshift infirmary. Without hesitation, Alina pulled the boots out of the corpse. However, she then accidentally forgot to undo one of the straps that was attached to his clothing and pulled his whole body accidentally.
I really need to get used to this superhuman strength.
The dead body was wearing some kind of similar clothing to the other cult members. However, with most of his clothing being unscathed, it was rather worrying. What if this was the man sent to retrieve her? Who knew? Wearing the boots, she felt comfortable with it, albeit if the size was slightly bigger than what she used to wear.
Patting the body further, she found three items, a swiss-saber just like what she currently used, a phone, and a gun. It was not a flintlock, nor a magical gun, but it was a modern gun with the same red engraving.
[House of Ingrid Glock 34]
A gun specially designed for the novice member of the House of Ingrid, due to its low Blood Point cost per bullet, it became the basic blood firearm for anyone who isn't a member of the inner sanctum. Alina, if you're reading this, don't put it in your Blood Inventory yet. :)
Alina pulled the magazine out of the pistol, it was filled with seventeen regular 9mm bullets. Alina wondered why Ingrid didn't want her to put it into her inventory yet, but hey, a pistol was a pistol. With the pistol now snugged into her pocket, she continued her journey out of this cult place.
As she made her way toward the exit, the temple seemed to react to her impending departure. The air grew colder, and a subtle vibration underfoot suggested the place was alive with unseen energies. Alina couldn't shake the feeling that the temple was watching her, or was it Alina? She wasn't sure.
However, she arrived at a dead end. It was a large empty room, with an area that looked similar to a boss battle arena. As Alina stood in the expansive room, the sudden realization of its purpose sent a chill down her spine. The room, with its vast, open space and eerily marked grounds, screamed boss fight. Her heart raced as the stone door sealed shut behind her, trapping her within.
Then, as if on cue, a distant door creaked open, revealing the silhouette of a formidable creature. As it stepped into the light, Alina's breath caught in her throat at the sight of the majestic yet terrifying being before her. The creature, With features reminiscent of a dragon—powerful limbs, a long, sinuous tail, and wings folded against its back—the creature's presence was terrifying
"A FUCKING DRAGON?" Alina shouted in surprise.
[Blood Drake - Lv. 2]
"The correction doesn't help a bit!"
Without warning, the drake opened its massive jaws, unleashing a torrent of blood needles toward Alina. Instinctively, she darted away, attempting to escape the deadly barrage. Yet the drake, with its cunning and agility, anticipated her movements. It redirected the assault, curving the trajectory of the blood needles to intercept her path.
Alina could not evade them all. Several needles found their mark, piercing her skin with an excruciating barrage of pricks, particularly across her face, which she had been unable to shield effectively. The sensation was akin to being assaulted by a swarm of fiery darts, each one burning as it dissolved upon contact with her skin.
[BP +100]
As Alina circled the drake, she then aimed her pistol and pulled the trigger. The bullets flew through the air and pierced the drake's scales easily. The blood drake screamed in pain as the blood leaked out of its body and it charged in Alina's direction. In a flash, Alina put back her pistol and prepared her saber.
Leveraging her forward momentum and the drake's aggressive advance, Alina executed a swift maneuver. She swung her saber with precision, slicing through the drake's formidable scales to expose the vulnerable flesh beneath. In its retaliation, the drake lashed out with a claw sharp enough to cleave stone. The force of its counterattack sent Alina hurtling towards the wall.
Her body slammed against the rocky wall and she then fell toward the ground. She felt one of her bones must have been cracked, but she knew, that if she stood still, she'd die, she then quickly stood up from the ground.
Just before she stood up, the drake flew towards the ceiling, and he began to do another breathing attack again. The whole room began to rain in blood needles, every single one of which pricked Alina's body without any chance of evading it. The needles pierced through her clothing, and through her skin, but somehow, it failed to pierce her skull. She then braved herself to look up and covered her eyes with her hand. She must do something or the drake would really kill her.
[BP +150]
She pulled out her pistol and then he aimed it at the drake. She then mercilessly shot the bullets out of her pistol into the drake's body. The drake shrieked in pain and began to dive down while preparing its sharp claw to end it all. Blood was leaking all over its body and the whole arena turned red from the battle. As the claw got closer to Alina, she prepared her attack.
"Take this, you fucking bird!" With the shout, Alina grabbed her saber from her blood inventory and slashed the drake with all of her might. However, the claw attack connected, and it hit Alina's abdomen.
Her slash broke the drake's wing and severed it from its main body. The creature lost its ability to fly, and with the last bullet on her magazine, Alina aimed it at the drake's head. She then pulled the trigger. The bullet bounced off its skeleton and ricocheted into its own heart and the drake gasped for air.
While holding down on her abdomen, Alina used all of her strength to slash down the creature's head from its torso. Blood sprayed all over the place, covering Alina's clothing and body in red warm liquid after the drake's head fell off.
[BP +5,000]
Alina then gasped for breath while holding down her abdomen.
"I did it."
She then dropped the saber on the ground. The pain in her abdomen worsened, and when she inspected it, the wound went as deep as a third of her index finger.
[Blood Overload Confirmed]
"That's odd, is that a ba-"
All of a sudden, her whole body began to convulse. She also felt her skin was burning.
Already in pain, Alina completely fell down to the ground flooded in the pool of drake's blood. The pain was worse than the drake's slash on her abdomen, and magnitude up from those needle pricks. Minutes passed, and the pain only worsened as if someone was scalping her head down to her legs.
Fifteen minutes later Alina stopped screaming, her voice simply gave out. Every minute, she felt her body was picked apart and put back together, with every single nerve cut and glued back together, with her vision blacking out every once in a while. All in a while her being conscious of the pain.
All of it didn't stop until three hours later when geometrical patterns began to glow in faint red on top of her skin. The pain didn't stop but Alina could finally move her body. The glow died down later after another two hours of convulsing.
Alina groaned weakly.
"I'll kill Ingrid when I meet her."