He who fights with monsters 21-30

Rufus, Farrah and Jason went back outside, the others giving Jason and his lingering smell some distance.

“Did something happen to you?” Jason asked the others.

“Like what?” Rufus asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jason said. “I’m getting a weird vibe from the two of you. From Gary as well. It feels… I’m not sure how to describe it. Dangerous, maybe?”

Rufus laughed.

“That feeling is our auras,” Rufus said. “Now that you’re iron rank, you can sense them. We’re both bronze rank, and not that far off silver, so we’re a lot more powerful than you. That’s the danger you’re sensing. You’ll soon learn to differentiate strength, and tell a monster from an essence user from a regular person.”

“So it’s like a warning,” Jason said.

“Yes,” Farrah said, “but it isn’t completely reliable. Some monsters can hide their auras. People can too, if they have an aura power.”
[JASON CAN SENSE AURAS TO DETERMINE STRENGTH]
- CHAPTER 22
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“All essence users age slower,” Rufus said. “At iron rank you wouldn’t notice the difference, but bronze rankers can live well past a hundred. Silvers can double that; reach silver rank young enough and you’ll look young for decades. Gold rankers live for centuries, and I’m not even sure diamond rankers can die of old age.”

“They’re immortal?” Jason asked.

“It’s a rumour,” Rufus said, “but a persistent one. There’s kind of an unwritten rule that diamond rankers don’t tell the rest of us the limits of their abilities.”

“So, am I going to get super old now?” Jason asked.

“Keep raising your rank, and yes,” Rufus said.

“Wow, that’s actually quite the bombshell,” Jason said.
[ADVENTURERS AGE A LOT SLOWER THAN NORMAL PEOPLE]
- CHAPTER 22
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Jason’s stomach made a large rumbling sound.

“I was pretty hungry already,” he said. “I think the stone of the feast made it worse.”

“You’re an essence user now,” Rufus said. “Eat a spirit coin.”

Jason took an iron-rank coin from his inventory. It had the metal-grey colour of iron but was actually made of crystal. Hesitantly he placed it into his mouth, where it immediately dissolved with an intense fizzing sensation. It tasted like he’d touched his tongue to a battery, tangy and energetic. He felt power flood through his body, washing away the hunger of moments before. Rufus and Farrah laughed as they watched his expressions, wide-eyed and panting.

“What’s wrong with him?” Gary asked. He had left the manor through the terrace doors and approached to sit with them on the lawn.

“He just ate his first spirit coin,” Rufus said, causing Gary to chortle.

Jason shook his head to clear it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this awake,” he said.
[JASON DOESN'T NEED TO EAT OR DRINK (FIND IN PREVIOUS CHAPTERS IF REALLY NEED IT) AND GETS BUY THROUGH ABSORBING MANA. BEST WAY IS THROUGH COINS BUT ANY METHOD WORKS]
- CHAPTER 22
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You have awakened the dark essence ability [Path of Shadows]. You have awakened 3 of 5 dark essence abilities.


Ability: [Path of Shadows] (Dark)

Special ability (dimension, teleport)
Cost: Low mana.
Cooldown: None.
Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
Effect (iron): Teleport between shadows. You must be able to see the destination shadow.
“Shadow teleport,” Jason said with a laugh. “Now that’s a proper magic power.”

He looked around for a shadow to try it out on, then stopped.

“Aside from this weird country estate thing here,” Jason said, “We’re in the middle of the desert, right?”

“That’s right,” Rufus said.

“I don’t recall seeing a lot of shadowy nooks in the barren desert wasteland,” Jason said.

“It is a lot of open country,” Rufus acknowledged.

A little disheartened, Jason turned to his final awakening stone.
[JASON HAS SHADOW BASED TELEPORTATION]
- CHAPTER 22
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Jason felt a prickling sensation spreading throughout his body. It became sharper and sharper, turning into pain as it focused on points on his arms, legs and chest. He gritted his teeth, but yelled out as blood burst out of a dozen pain points, spraying over the circle.

Rufus moved to intervene, but Farrah grabbed his arm.

“Interfering now would be more dangerous than letting it happen,” she said. Rufus turned a frustrated face to look at her, but stepped back on seeing her resolute expression.

Blood sprayed out of Jason like a fountain, ripping right through his clothes. He staggered, struggling to stay upright as the blood kept spurting out of him. As the blood mixed with the pooled liquid on the floor, the obscured lines of the diagram underneath started to light up, shining red light through the liquid. The other three looked at each other as the room was filled with the same red light that had suffused the ritual chamber they escaped together.

Jason stumbled as the blood finally stopped pouring out of his body. He was pale and sweaty, swaying as he struggled to avoid toppling over, but remained on his feet. His eyes were locked on the glowing red pool in front of him.

Rufus and Gary flinched as a leech with a horrifying ring of lamprey teeth emerged from the pool, mirroring the scenario of the day before.

“Isn’t that…?”

Ability: [Sanguine Horror] (Blood)

Familiar (ritual, summon)
Cost: Extreme mana, extreme stamina, extreme health.
Cooldown: None.
Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
Effect (iron): Summon a [Sanguine Horror] to serve as a familiar.
A second leech crawled up through the red liquid, then a third and fourth as their rate of appearance accelerated. Soon leeches were tumbling out until they formed a waist high pile on the floor. Unlike their experience the previous day, no bloodied rags appeared to push the pile into a humanoid shape. The pile remaining as a pile.

The red pool started slowly soaking into the floor, which absorbed it as if it were disappearing down a drain. Jason’s blood, the circle he drew and all the magical materials within it, vanishing into the floor as if they had never existed. Jason watched the process with eyes foggy, standing unsteadily.

“That’s not going to drip downstairs, is it?” Gary asked.

“No,” Farrah said. “Its all being drawn back through the astral channel created by the summoning.”

“It’d be funny if Jason summoned another outworlder.”

“That’d be fantastic,” Farrah said. “The paper I could write on that would be the talk of the Magic Society.”

As the final traces of the blood pool drained away into nothingness, Jason collapsed to the floor.

“He really does pass out a lot,” Gary said. “And he really goes through clothes. Wait, is that thing going to eat him?”

The mound of leeches was undulating its way toward Jason’s unconscious body. It wasn’t far, but the pile moved slowly.

“It’s his familiar,” Farrah said. “It’s not going to eat him.”

They watched the slow-moving pile undulate closer to Jason’s unconscious form.

“Are you sure?” Gary asked.

The pile crawled over Jason’s limp body, seeking out the wounds where the blood had sprayed out. The leeches started disappearing as they buried themselves into the wounds.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure,” Farrah said.

“Are they crawling inside him?” Gary asked.

“It’s a summoned familiar,” Farrah said. “A summoned familiar can temporarily disperse its body and place its spirit inside the summoner.”

“Does it usually look that disturbing?” Gary asked.

“You’re the one who wanted this,” Rufus said. “Farrah, what do we do with him?”

“Well,” she said uncertainly, “he should be fine.”

“He’s covered in wounds,” Gary said. “With leeches crawling into them.”

“They won’t hurt him,” Farrah said. “They’re not even really crawling inside him. Look closely and you’ll see they’re actually merging into his blood. See how they’re kind of melting as they push their way in?”

“I think that might be worse.” Gary said. “I mean, melted leech can’t be something you want in your blood, right?

“He’ll be fine,” Farrah said. “Probably. Every familiar gives different benefits when it subsumes itself into the summoner,” she said. “They can merge themselves into the hair, the skin, even the aura. If I remember rightly, the ones who enter the blood usually induce rapid healing. So really, he should be better than fine.”

They watched as the last of the leeches vanished in Jason’s blood. The three adventurers stood over Jason, laying unconscious and undignified on the floor.

“Is he healing?” Gary asked.

“I can’t tell,” Rufus said. “There’s blood over all the wounds.”

“Well, wipe some off,” Gary said.

“You’re the one who wanted him to use that stone,” Rufus said. “You wipe some off.”

“I have fur,” Gary said. “I don’t want to get blood in it.”

“Since when has that been a concern?” Rufus asked.

“It’s a new thing,” Gary said. “I’m growing as a person, and I think you should support that. By being the one who wipes the blood off.”

Farrah shook her head, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket.

“You two are children,” she said, wiping carefully at a blood patches on Jason’s arm. Underneath was clear, unbroken skin.

“See?” she said to the others. “I told you he’d be fine. I had total confidence.”
[JASON'S FAMILIAR IS SOMETHING HE ONLY NEEDS TO SUMMON ONCE PER RANK. THEY'RE SUPER LEECHES THAT EAT FLESH, LIVE IN JASON'S BLOOD, AND GIVE HIM A PRETTY SOLID HEALING FACTOR]
- CHAPTER 23
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He failed immediately. His feet slipped out from under him and he slid down into the creature’s legs. It raised one of them, which Jason realised tapered into a point as it came down and stabbed into him.

Jason cried out with pain, but he still held a death-grip on his dagger. He slid the blade across the monster’s leg, skittering over the hard shell until it found a vulnerable joint. The knife slotted right in between the plates of shell and he sliced the edge across the cartilage.

As the dagger cut into flesh, he used one of his abilities. He felt power surge out from deep inside his body, electric and exhilarating. It passed through his arm and into the dagger, filling the weapon with magic.

Ability: [Leech Bite] (Blood)

Special attack (melee, drain, wounding, blood)
Cost: Low stamina.
Cooldown: None.
Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
Effect (iron): Inflicts or refreshes the [Bleeding] condition. Drains a small amount of health and stamina when refreshing the [Bleeding] condition.
[Bleeding] (affliction, wounding, blood): Deals ongoing damage by causing or increasing blood loss. As a wounding effect, this condition absorbs and negates an amount of incoming healing, after which this affliction immediately ends.
As Jason yanked the knife free, blood sprayed out of the joint. The monster raised its leg sharply, pulling it free of Jason while releasing a high-pitched, alien shriek. Along with Jason’s power, the magic of his snake-tooth dagger did its own work.

Weapon [Night Fang] has inflicted [Umbral Snake Venom] on [Shab].
Jason scrambled to escape its legs as one of them rose up, poised to stab him again. He found himself directly underneath the creature, laying on his back. In front of him was the creature’s underbelly, which turned out to be fleshy and unprotected by shell. Jason called up the power within him again, raking the vulnerable underside with his dagger.

Ability: [Punish] (Sin)

Special attack (melee, curse)
Cost: Low mana.
Cooldown: None.
Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
Effect (iron): Inflicts necrotic damage and the [Sin] affliction.
[Sin] (affliction, curse, stacking): All necrotic damage taken is increased. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
Blood and other fluids splashed over Jason from long wound, leaving him spluttering salty fluid as he shimmied on his back out behind the creature. The monster itself went wild at the wound to its underside, breaking it’s pincers out of Hiram’s grip and flailing about with more high-pitched shrieking.

One of the monster’s legs impaled one of Jason’s by accident as the creature thrashed about. It didn’t seem to notice, yanking its leg back out again. Jason turned himself over and crawled painfully away, still spitting out monster juice.

After getting free of the maddened monster, Jason looked back to see Hiram doing his best to hold the creature’s attention, both arms wrapped around one of the pincers. Without getting up Jason held a hand out toward the creature and chanted out a spell.

“Your fate is to suffer.”

There was no visible effect, but Jason felt the power surge out of him to enact itself upon the creature.

Ability: [Inexorable Doom] (Doom)

Spell (curse)
Cost: Moderate mana.
Cooldown: None.
Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
Effect (iron): Periodically applies an additional instance of each stacking curse, disease, poison or unholy affliction the target is suffering from. This is a curse effect. This effect cannot be cleansed while any other curse or any disease, poison or unholy affliction is in effect.
Jason forced himself to his feet, ignoring the pain from his stabbed leg and abdomen as he limped further from the creature.

“Hiram!” Jason yelled past the creature. “Let it go and back off. It’ll die on its own.”

On the long wagon ride through the desert, Jason had spent hours going over his abilities, discussing with the others how to use them. Except Anisa, who refused to help him use his ‘unclean powers.’ The time spent strategising proved its worth now as he knew to withdraw and let the afflictions to do their work. It was obvious when considering things calmly beforehand, but in the heat of the moment he may well have kept attacking, putting himself and Hiram at unnecessary risk.

Jason’s first special attack had inflicted the bleeding affliction. This was effectively a powerful anticoagulant, making blood loss all the worse. The second special attack inflicted a curse called sin that increased any necrotic damage that was suffered. The dagger inflicted a necrotic poison, which was amplified by the curse. Finally, Jason’s spell would continually stack up both the poison and curse, increasing their effect. The result of all this was an exponentially escalating necrosis that would inevitably overcome the creature. All they had to do was wait.

Jason and Hiram backed off while the monster between them thrashed about. Dark fluids started oozing from its joints as it staggered forward toward Hiram, but soon it collapsed, the dying flesh in its legs unable to hold the creature’s weight. The pincer’s lifted up weakly in a last gesture of defiance before falling still.

You have defeated [Shab].


Quest: [Waterfall Monster]

Objective complete: Defeat shab 1/1.
50 [Water Quintessence Gems] have been added to your inventory.
Quest complete.
100 [Iron Rank Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
Jason was happy with how his abilities worked out, although he had one major concern. He was reliant on necrotic damage for his abilities to take full effect and his only current source of that damage was not his abilities, but his magic dagger. The others assured him that he would get such a power, but until then he would be reliant on an external tool.

Hiram and Jason cautiously approached the creature from either side. Jason had two painful wounds and he could see an injury on Hiram’s arm. Hiram stood over the creature, cradling his bleeding arm.

“What did you do to it?” Hiram asked.

The monster was oozing black fluid from under its shell, which gave off a horrifying stench.

“I wasn’t confident about cracking that shell, “ Jason said, “so I killed it from the inside out.”

Jason held hand over the creature and chanted a spell.

“As your life was mine to reap, your death is mine to harvest.”

Ability: [Blood Harvest] (Blood)

Spell (drain).
Cost: Low mana.
Cooldown: None.
Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
Iron: Drain the remnant life force of a recently deceased body, replenishing health, stamina and mana. Only affects targets with blood.
Dark red light rose up from within the creature. Jason’s aura sense told him it was the monster’s remnant life force made visible. It siphoned up into Jason’s hand, draining away from the dead monster. As it did, Jason felt the sting of healing flesh as his wounds closed over. His body was reinvigorated as his stamina and mana were replenished. As he consumed the red light, the flesh inside the shell withered, the shell itself growing brittle and crumbling. By the time the red light was fully devoured, the monster was little more than a withered husk.

Hiram had been looking askance at Jason as he recited sinister spells and drained the residual life force from the monster.
[JASON FIGHTING A 3 METRE LONG CRAB/SHARK THING, KILLING IT WITH STACKED POISON AND NECROTIC DAMAGE ALONG WITH HIS ATTACKS HAVE A COAGULANT EFFECT TO INCREASE BLEED AND HIS HEALING FROM BODIES ABILITY HEALING MULTIPLE IMPALEMENT WOUNDS]
- CHAPTER 27
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He was cut off by a wall of water erupting through the aperture and down on top of them. It smashed them together in a tangle of arms and legs. Together they were blasted down the tunnel and hurled into the air, hundreds of metres above the ground.

Water crashed into Jason like a derailed train, ploughing him straight into Hiram and blasting them both out the end of the tunnel. Sensations came faster than he could process; pain, wet, disorientation. He couldn’t breathe, or even tell which way was up.

Jason and Hiram had clutched onto each other reflexively, their limbs tangled together. Landscape blurred past as they span through the air, tumbling like the now-resumed waterfall. Jason’s first coherent thought was Hiram slipping away and he reasserted his grip. Darkness emerged from Jason, enveloping both men.

Extending the weight-reducing function of [Cloak of Night] increases the cost from low mana-per-second to moderate mana-per-second.
Their downward plunge was reduced to a drift, floating out and away from the waterfall. Their wild spinning was arrested, and they were able to orient themselves as they descended. Jason was grateful that his cloak could be conjured at a thought. If it had required an incantation like a spell, he doubted he would have been able to get the words out. Only now they were free of the water and gently drifting could they even speak intelligibly.
[JASON'S FLOATING CLOAK STOPS A POTENTIAL SEVERAL HUNDRED METRE FALL, CAN CARRY MORE THAN ONE PERSON]
- CHAPTER 28
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“I guess I’ll have to be,” Jason said, flashing Hiram a grin. “Don’t worry; I’ve still got a gimmick or two.”

Jason started sprinting toward the channel. It was a natural waterway, thirty or so metres across. Jason leapt off the short embankment, landing on the gently flowing surface of the water as if it were solid ground. He laughed with delight as he sprinted over the surface to the other side. He ducked down briefly as one of the dead shabs floated past, long enough to brush his fingers over its shell.
[RUNNING OVER WATER CUS OF CLOAK]
- CHAPTER 28
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He looked at the approaching creatures, wondering about the range of his spell. He could feel his abilities instinctively, realising that anything he could clearly see was a viable target. He fixed his gaze on each monster, chanting a spell for each.

“Your fate is to suffer.”

The inexorable doom spell would add more and more of any stacking effect on the victim. The shabs didn’t have any on them yet, but Jason would change that as soon as they caught up with him. He drew his dagger, he ran the blade across the back of his forearm, but it didn’t draw blood.

“Huh.”

He realised he should have done it before drinking the potion. He gripped the blade tightly in his fist and yanked it out, this time managing to a shallow cut on his palm.

Weapon [Night Fang] has inflicted [Umbral Snake Venom] on you.
You have resisted [Umbral Snake Venom].
[Umbral Snake Venom] does not take effect.
You have gained an instance of [Resistant].
Jason, swore, having forgotten that his dagger was poisonous. Luckily, it didn’t take effect. There was now an icon representing the resistant buff next to his mana and stamina bars.

“Not that I want to complain, but why didn’t the poison work?”

Combat Log

You have been afflicted with iron-rank poison [Umbral Snake Venom].
Ability [Sin Eater] gives you increased resistance to all afflictions.
You have resisted [Umbral Snake Venom].
Resisting an affliction has triggered ability [Sin Eater], granting you an instance of [Resistant].
[RESISTANCE TO POISONS - ALSO, JASON'S AN IDIOT]
- CHAPTER 28
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Jason glanced down at his hand, which had a line of blood but the wound had closed. The healing his familiar provided couldn’t swiftly regenerate the kind of impaling wounds he took from the shab, although thinking back, it may not have been pure adrenaline that kept him moving. A little cut on the hand, though, it made short work of.
[FAMILIAR CAN'T RAPIDLY HEAL FULL ON IMPALEMENT BUT CAN NIGH-INSTANTLY HEAL UP MINOR WOUNDS]
- CHAPTER 28
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The shabs were finally drawing close.

“Din-dins, Leechy,” Jason told the pile, which started undulating slowly in the direction of the shabs. “I’ve got to come up with a better name.”

The approaching shabs hadn’t regrouped after their fall from the sky, so were coming at Jason individually. The first one gave up its side-shuffling as it spotted Jason, turning its shark head to face him. He had time to really take a look at the creature. A shark in a purple and red shell, with legs halfway between a spider and a crab. Above the mouth full of jagged teeth it had tiny crayfish eyes; black orbs waving back and forth on short stalks.

“You certainly are creepy.”

As the first shab approached, it seemed to lock onto the leech pile in its path. It lunged with both pincers, which dug into the pile with little effect. Instead, the pile slithered over the pincers and up the arms, which it started shaking to get them off. Some were tossed away, others crawling over the shell in search of the gaps hiding vulnerable flesh. The remaining pile made for the creature’s legs, crawling up and all over it. Some leeches were squished between sections of shell, but more and more found something soft to sink their teeth into and the monster started shrieking.

[Sanguine Horror] has inflicted [Bleeding] on [Shab].
[Sanguine Horror] has inflicted [Leech Toxin] on [Shab].
[Sanguine Horror] has inflicted [Necrotoxin] on [Shab].
[Bleeding] already in effect, [Bleeding] is refreshed.
[Sanguine Horror] has inflicted [Leech Toxin] on [Shab].
[Sanguine Horror] has inflicted [Necrotoxin] on [Shab].
The notifications came thick and fast as every leech that found purchase started delivering the same bleed effect Jason used, plus two different kinds of poison.

[Leech Toxin] (affliction, poison, blood, stacking): When [Bleeding] is negated, an instance of [Leech Toxin] on the target is consumed to reapply [Bleeding]. Additional instances can be accumulated.
On top of inflicting damage through blood loss, the strength of the bleeding affliction was that it soaked up healing, negating its effect. The leech toxin would reapply the bleed, requiring even more healing to eliminate it. He didn’t think the shab had any rapid healing ability, but it would be useful against monsters with the power to regenerate. So long as enough of the leech toxin was applied, it would refresh the bleed over and over, leaving any healing stopped cold.

The other poison the leech inflicted was much the same as Jason’s dagger.

[Necrotoxin] (affliction, poison, stacking): Inflicts ongoing necrotic damage until poison is cleansed. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.
Unlike Jason, the leeches didn’t require an external source of necrotic damage. They were a tiny army of ambulatory poison daggers.

Jason was going to move in on it, but the shab was already in bad shape. He felt a little pointless compared to his familiar. His inexorable doom spell was already on the shabs, but compared to what the leeches were doing, his spell adding a few more afflictions was barely relevant.

The second shab was drawing close and Jason went forward to meet it. He tried to move around the pincers to get his knife into one of the leg joints, but met with immediate difficulty. When not restricted by a tunnel, a shab could easily skitter sideways to keep its savage mouth pointed right at its prey. The defensive potion slowing Jason down didn’t help.

A pincer came at Jason. He avoided it clamping down on him, but took a glancing blow to the head. His skin might have been hardened by a potion, but it still rang his bell, sending him stumbling back. He glanced over at the first shab, which was woozily staggering back and forth, covered in leeches.

“I think my familiar might be stronger than me,” Jason said. “Good job, Leechy; see if you can’t catch that next one.”

Leeches started dropping off the stricken shab, and Jason continued to square off with his own monster. Realising there was no going around the pincers, he tried a new tack, moving straight in.
[JASON'S FAMILIAR LEECHES ABSOLUTELY DICK ON A 3 METRE LONG SHARK/CRAB MONSTER, AND THEIR REPEATED POISON AND BLEED EFFECTS EFFECTIVELY NEGATE HEALING FACTORS]
- CHAPTER 29
------------------------------------------------------------------\For the price of letting the pincer grab his empty-handed left arm, his knife-wielding right was free to strike. With Jason’s arm in its grip, the pincer was no longer jerking about. Jason slammed the point of his dagger into the joint of the pincer.

Weapon [Night Fang] has inflicted [Umbral Snake Venom] on [Shab].
Special attack [Punish] has inflicted [Sin] on [Shab].
The creature shrieked, releasing Jason’s arm. He stumbled back, the dagger sliding free of the creature. The shab lashed out with its other pincer and Jason gave up the injured arm again. Whether from the previous injury or the rage of the monster, the pincer clamping down was much more agonising. He screamed at the pain, but fighting through it, savagely stabbed with his knife, again finding the joint of the pincer. It was the monster’s turn to shriek as it once again released Jason’s arm.

Special attack [Leech Bite] has inflicted [Bleeding] on [Shab].
Jason stumbled away from the shab, his left arm hanging limp and dripping blood. Unlike his familiar, Jason couldn’t pile-on the afflictions rapidly, but now all he needed was time. The inexorable doom spell would live up to its name, escalating the curse and the poison until the monster was overcome.

So long as he could stay out of the creature’s reach, its defeat was inevitable, but Jason wasn’t done. The shab might be quick side-to-side, but just by jogging backward Jason created distance. Then he stopped, held up his good arm and chanted a spell.

“Your blood is not yours to keep, but mine on which to feast.”

Ability: [Feast of Blood] (Blood)

> Spell (drain, blood)
> Cost: Moderate mana.
> Cooldown: 30 seconds.
> Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)
> Effect (iron): Drain health and stamina. Only affects targets with bleeding wounds or who are suffering from the [Bleeding] affliction.
Red life force shone out of the shab. Some of it started streaming out from the wounds Jason had inflicted and into his waiting hand. Jason felt the healing sting in his wounded arm, but the life force drained was limited. Unlike his blood harvest spell, feast of blood didn’t take all the life force, but he could use it on living enemies. Jason’s arm was still far from healed, but at least now he could move it a little.

The shab let out an ear-piercing shriek, driven to madness by the effect of Jason’s spell. The red glow retracted back into the shab, which seemed frantic at Jason plucking away its life force. It scrambled madly, but was not physiologically designed for pursuit. If anything, its panicked movement was slowing it down. Jason was easily keeping out of reach as his afflictions slowly overtook it.

You have defeated [Shab].
Defeat [Shab] 1/4.
Jason glanced at the shab the leeches had left behind. It was an emptied-out shell, collapsed on the ground. He looked around for where the leeches had moved to intercept the third shab. Spotting them, he slapped an exasperated hand over his face. The third shab had apparently seen what the sanguine horror did to the first one and was trying to avoid it.
[JASON POISONS A SHAB TO DEATH AFTER A HANDFUL OF MINUTES]
- CHAPTER 29
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Using his blood harvest spell, Jason drained the remnant life force from the three shabs, healing himself back into pristine condition. He ran a hand over the bloody, but fully intact arm that had not long ago been badly mangled.

“Not bad. Not bad at all.”

He looted the shabs, reabsorbed the sanguine horror and made his way back across the channel. When he got there, he tried to loot Hiram’s shab.
[BLOOD HARVEST HEALS HIS MANGLED AND BROKEN ARM, SANGUINE HORROR CAN JUST GO INSIDE JASON'S BLOOD STREAM WHENEVER]
- CHAPTER 29
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In the garden courtyard of the inn, Jason was sitting comfortably in the late afternoon shade, looking down at a single leech on the ground.

“So you’ve got it, right?” he asked. “Left for yes, right for no. That’s my left and right, so your right and left. You have that?”

The leech moved to the left.

“Okay, that’s a yes. Unless you don’t have it right and you were trying to say no.”

The leech wobbled side to side.

“Yeah, I’m confused too. I can’t seem to help overcomplicating things. Alright, let’s just assume you’ve got it. That fine by you?”

The leech moved left.

“Great. So, do you have a name?”

The leech moved right.

“No name, okay. Would you like me to give you one?”

The leech moved left.

“That’s good,” Jason said. “I don’t want to keep calling you Leechy. That’d be like Gary calling me Humany. Or Outworldery, I guess. Not being human anymore is bit of a blow.”

“Who are you talking to?” Gary asked, walking into the courtyard.
[SANGUINE HORROR (SOON TO BE NAMED) IS INTELLIGENT AND CAN COMPREHEND SPEECH]
- CHAPTER 30
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