Victoria pressed some buttons, and a wall opened, releasing a dozen wolves. "I'm throwing you to the wolves," Victoria said.
The wolves rushed at me, baring their fangs. "That's a terrible joke," I said under my breath.
I jumped out of the pseudo-airlock to prevent myself from getting cornered inside and ran around the outside of the habitat so the wolves would follow me in a line and not surround me. That didn't exactly work how I planned it.
Some of the wolves ran ahead of me, and I ended up getting surrounded anyway. I didn't know what to do at that point. The only thing I could think to do was fight my way through them one wolf at a time.
So that's what I did. I grabbed the first wolf that lunged at me by the jaws so it couldn't close them on my head and struggled to keep them from closing. Or at least that's what I thought would happen. Instead, I pulled the wolf's jaws apart, ripping its lower jaw off its body, killing it.
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 5 of the Beyond Human Realm!]
I was a lot stronger than I thought I was. Still, there were eleven of the wolves and one of me. I had to get them away from me. The wolves started lunging at me left and right. I grabbed each of them in turn and hurled them as far away as I could.
They all flew roughly one hundred feet away. They landed hard and struggled to get up. This was my chance to even out the numbers. There were three left in my vicinity, all huddled together.
I lunged towards them and grabbed the one on the left and the one on the right and smashed them into the one in the middle. Their heads exploded as they impacted each other. Three headless wolf corpses fell to the ground in a pile.
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 6 of the Beyond Human Realm!]
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 7 of the Beyond Human Realm!]
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 8 of the Beyond Human Realm!]
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 9 of the Beyond Human Realm!]
I was getting blood and viscera all over me. I didn't realize being a vampire would be such a messy business. I would have to take a shower after this. Maybe I could convince Victoria to take one with me. I winked inwardly to myself.
It was exhilarating to level up so fast! Then again, I wasn't just taking a little bit of blood from my victims like most vampires supposedly do. Just extracting a little bit of life essence at a time. I was fully annihilating my victims, taking all of their life essence in one go. I would be surprised if I wasn't leveling up this fast.
Being an omni-vampire must have allowed me to extract life essence without having to drink blood or even extract emotional energy. As long as I killed my victims, all of their life essence went into me.
This was overpowered. No other vampire could get stronger this fast. Just me. I couldn't wait to really get started leveling up. This was just a warm-up run.
The remaining eight wolves finally recovered from being thrown across the habitat and were running back over to me. I dove and tackled one to one to the ground and broke its neck.
Then, I got up and kicked one so hard it instantly died. I quickly dispatched the remaining wolves through a series of punches, rips, and kicks that killed each of them in one shot.
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 9 of the Vampire Spawn Realm!]
Now that the wolves were all dead, I made my way back to the habitat airlock. Victoria spoke into an electronic box that sent her voice through the speakers in the habitat.
"How do you feel?" She said.
"Wet," I said. I was covered in blood and guts. I really, really needed a shower.
"Besides that," she said.
"Good. No, great! I'm getting stronger by the minute." I said with a smile on my face.
"I noticed. How are you doing that? All vampires need to feed somehow to get stronger, but you're just straight up killing and getting stronger," she said.
"I don't know. It has something to do with being an omni-vampire. Somehow I'm just instantly absorbing the life essence of the things I kill," I said.
"That's convenient," she said.
"Very," I said.
"You ready for another round?" Victoria said.
"I'm kind of covered in gunk," I said.
"Get over it. That's how it always is when you're fighting for your life," Victoria said.
"Fine," I said. "Let's go again."
"Ok, this time I'm going to release something scarier." She pressed some buttons, and the wall opened up again.
This time a bear came out. Not a small bear either. This one was three times the size of a normal bear. It was 3 meters tall on all fours, and its fur was jet black.
It lumbered over to me a lot faster than I expected due to it's massive size. When it got close, it swiped its claws at me. It was like a log with pointy bits at the end being swung at me.
I tried to jump over it, and I did. What I didn't expect was the follow-up swipe, which knocked me off my feet and 50 feet away. I rolled on the ground for a while. When I got up, the bear was already on me again.
This time it was on its hind legs, getting ready to come down and stomp me. I didn't let it. I jumped into the air and kicked it in the stomach with both of my legs.
My legs blasted through the bear's stomach to the other side of its body and with my forward momentum, the rest of my body followed. My entire body, including my face, slid through the hole I had just created in the bear.
I landed on my ass on the other side, literally covered in blood and guts. Head to toe. Then I looked up and noticed the bear was falling backwards onto me. I barely had enough time to roll out of the way before its massive body came crashing down onto the ground.
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 10 of the Vampire Spawn Realm!]
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 1 of the Fledgling Vampire Realm!]
[Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 2 of the Fledgling Vampire Realm!]
Fuck! That was the most disgusting thing that's ever happened to me, and now I was just sitting in it. I waited for Victoria to say what I expected her to say.
"Ready for another round?" Victoria said.
"No, I'm not ready for another round! I'm covered in filth!" I said.
"You'll get used to it. By the way, how strong do you think you are now? We need to get you up to at least Vampire Adept before you enter the Vampire Academy, and that starts tomorrow," Victoria said.
"I wouldn't call myself an adept yet. More of a fledgling right now," I said.
"Huh. That's one of the power levels we used to measure a vampire's strength and abilities by. How did you know that?" She said.
"Instinct?" I said, shrugging my shoulders.
"You're a terrible liar. I'll let you keep your secrets, though. It's good practice for surviving in the non human world. You don't want to show all your cards until you absolutely have to. It's easier to kill opponents when they don't know what you have up your sleeve," Victoria said.
"That said, you can trust me. I'm your progenitor. It's my job to keep you alive and safe. Also, your success or failure reflects on me, so it's in my best interest for you to succeed. Imagine if my progeny made vampires the top sect! I'd be as much a celebrity as you!"
"I appreciate your reassurance, but as you said, keeping your secrets close to the chest keeps you alive, and I want to stay unalive as long as I can. We'll see how I feel down the road," I said. "And hey, wait! Progeny? Doesn't that mean I'm your child? But we've made out. Isn't that weird?"
"Vampire progeny just means I turned you. We aren't related. It's normal for vampires to have relations with their progeny, even expected in some circles. Vampire's can't bear children, so the concept of inbreeding doesn't even exist for us," Victoria said.
"Oh, ok. This vampire shit is going to take some getting used to," I said.
"Another round?" Victoria said.
"Sure. If we need to get me to a certain strength, then that's what we'll do," I said.
"I'm releasing a troll," she said as she pressed some buttons.
The wall opened, and a massive literal troll walked through the opening. It was green, wearing animal furs for clothing, and carried a huge wooden club that was darkened from all the blood and sweat it had absorbed. It stood 4 meters tall and probably weighed about 700 lbs, or 318 kg.
"I feel like you're trolling me at this point," I said.