CHAPTER 144: | DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

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  I smirked, then took a single step.

  Vwoom.

  [Void Step.] The movement had almost used all of my mana to travel through the folds of space and time. I reappeared exactly a mile away from the ancestral residence of the ‘Seashore Clan.’

  I smiled at the usefulness of [Void Step,] then looked at my surroundings. The area featured a more overgrown kelp forest, whilst the jagged mountain peaks common in these parts were lesser in number here. However, appearance-wise, these mountain peaks were more mystical than they seemed.

  I could detect that the strange plants found on the cliffs were more than what they appeared to be. Some were familiar to me, like that blue flower with its weirdly shaped petals. It felt mystical in a way, based on its aura, calm and serene.

  I could attribute its appearance to the Corpse Flower, which would only grow where corpses are abundant. Though it is a dangerous flower when consumed with the wrong affinity, but consuming it with the right one would allow the consumer to gain a greater affinity to darkness. If they were lucky, they might be able to tap into 'death,' a higher attainment than darkness itself.

  So, this plant being similar in appearance, except for its colors, meant one of two things, it was a miraculous elixir, or worse, it was just an ordinary herb that could increase your Water Archetype skill proficiency.

  A boon for the water users, perhaps. But it wasn’t something valuable to me, nor to any of my subordinates. Even Samantha. Who practically possesses Blood Affinity, which had the same category as water which falls to the same logic that they are both liquid, but it is not water in itself. It is a separate entity. 'Blood Affinity' is more like 'life affinity' itself, but a more sinister than 'life affinity.

  It restructures the usage of the 'life affinity.' Instead of using the life energy that the world gives to promote growth and life, 'blood affinity' forcefully seizes the life of the world through the conversion of blood. Through the use of these two methods.

  The first is to forcefully extract blood from a living being. These beings called the ‘Creatures of the Night’ either use their fangs to directly extract it through a bite, or use their magic, converted into 'blood magic,' to extract the blood of all living creatures through wounds. Or, they force it to reveal itself to weaponize the victim's blood against them.

  Also, as a precaution,these weapons crafted from the blood of a living being are considered impure. If ever you were injured by one, say goodbye to your health. It basically inflicts a hundred curses that are incurable unless the caster undoes it, or you find someone capable of purging that filth from your system. But finding affinity users that specialize in 'Extreme Heat' or 'Extreme Purity' is hard to come by, only a Champion or above is capable of purging these curses.

  Which meant you are already good as dead when it hits you. So yeah, a ‘Creature of the Night,' which is in itself a noble being, was an overpowered race. Unless you know how to deal with them, which I shouldn’t put into more detail since it’s pretty much obvious.

  Then, should we go to the next method? That would be extracting the 'Life Attribute' in the atmosphere to transform it into 'Blood Magic' to heal themselves or their companions. So basically, the 'Creatures of the Night' are not the generic vampires that I read, or you had read, in a novel. They are basically overpowered and omnipotent in the same realm.

  These beings possess cursed blood that could indefinitely kill the one they wanted to kill, and they could endlessly regenerate their forms using the life essence in the atmosphere to their liking.

  So, in a traditional sense, these mosquitoes don’t suck your blood to regenerate their bodies. They deemed those methods as something only primitives use. Such an act was far too inelegant, far too inefficient for noble creatures such as them. Only when they were desperate would they resort to such primitive methods, but it would rarely happen to them since their battles would end before they even needed to use the atmospheric life essence to heal themselves.

  So pretty much, they are bloodsucking vampires that call themselves ‘Creatures of the Night,’ with Samantha being the 'Empress of the Night.' So It’s quite dumb that she’s asking for my help like a damsel in distress.

  But I humored her preference. Sincr you could consider her to be an infant 'Empress of the Night' who is incapable of retracting her claws, nor does she know how to manipulate blood. Because I had practically forgotten to train her for the past year as I was busy piecing this piece of shit of a body of mine together. I could have just shaped my mana into those needy parts that my body needed, then devoured some Overseers to recover my body.

  Truly, it was an oversight due to me being too old. I sighed, then took a quick look at my core, which was nearly empty. I 'Marionetted' my body to step through the scaffolding that I cast using my remainder of mana, utilizing the Sacred Earth Affinity for lower mana consumption. I dashed through the currents, traveling like a breeze, passing through hundreds of meters in less than a second.

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  While I moved, I pulled the mana from the atmosphere, and when I felt like my core was filled to the brim, I took another step.

  Zap.

  I used [Void Step] to skip another mile of distance, before dashing through the scaffoldings I made in a repeat.

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  Inside the whale’s stomach, Samantha could be seen crouched in a corner. Samantha's could be seen glancing at her feet, which had already been eaten away by the digestive system of the beast. She sighed, not knowing that her blood alone, as the 'Empress of the Night,' was sufficient to cast more than a thousand curses, each of them extremely vicious.

  Samantha, who was new to this power, didn’t know how vicious her unholy blood truly was, slowly eating away at the whale’s lifeforce. Nor did she know that she only survived this long due to the regenerative power of her bloodline.

  She sighed in the corner and moved her feet, elated to find that her broken ankles were already healed. She didn’t know whether it was thanks to the bloodline she inherited from her master that she survived until now. Though she was in pain she remained silent, as she was fighting a silent battle for a chance of survival.

  Samantha had already waited for god knows how much time had passed. She manipulated her mana, imagining it taking the form of a revolver. She charged it, but failed due to her lack of mana control training.

  She tried to gather her mana into her 'Mana Revolvers' again, but they exploded into pieces. Clenching her teeth, she let out a frustrated punch into the crystalline structure she had seen earlier. But then she paused, unable to process the nature of this object, an orb attached with veins, flesh, and other fleshy matter. She smiled. "If I'm right... does this mean that I am stuck here with its core?"

  Her smile deepened upon this realization. She rolled up her sleeves, which were riddled with holes. The same was happening to her dress. She sighed at her looks. She was practically the same as naked right now. The acidic environment had dissolved the fabric, leaving her ivory curves, the soft peaks of her chest, and the deepest secrets of her form completely exposed to the dank air. She didn’t take too kindly to it.

  She clenched her teeth harder as she watched her favorite dress dissolving into nothingness. Then she clenched her fist, imbued it with mana, and pummeled it into the core.

  Thud. Thud.

  The core shook from the impact. The whale, who was soundly asleep, awoke from the commotion in its stomach. It used its mana to enhance its digestive system to fasten the death of the woman inside it. But the whale frowned deeper as it felt the punches of that woman pulling at its core becoming more and more ferocious by the second.

  Meanwhile inside the whale stomach Samantha, was alarmed at the increased acidity, bit her lips harder and let out a flurry of punches she didn’t know she was capable of. In a matter of minutes, her dress had fully dissolved, leaving her completely naked. She clenched her fist, not knowing that her body was gradually adapting to the acidity. The first time she got here, her skin was being dissolved, but after a few minutes, it only did minor damage. The acidity could only dissolve her dead skin now.

  But Samantha wasn’t observant enough to notice these kinds of things. As she snorted then continued her assaults. However, her strength did little more than shake the core from here to there.

  The whale noticing it, didn't find it threatening. It went from alarmed to relaxed. It took one last glance at the sky and saw an ugly male human. That even the word horrendous alone wouldn't do justice to his looks. The whale dismissed it, thinking it was an illusion created from the drowsiness it felt.

  The whale opened its mouth, let out a low howl, and yawned. It slowly closed its eyes. But before it could fully close them, that same ugly human appeared, squatting in front of it with displeasure evident on his face. The whale was shocked. This wasn’t a dream. Since when could such an ugly human exist?

  Look at its face, the whale thought. So deformed that it looked worse than a demon. Look at its deformed torso that looked like this man had scoliosis, which was medically impossible in a magical world.

  Or so it thought, until it saw this vile demon. He was so raw that it looked like he came from the depths of hell. Even Satan himself would avoid this ugly human if he saw it in Hell.

  The whale shook its head in disdain.

  But the man lifted the whale's eyelids wide open. He muttered, anger visible in his twisted expressions. "This is weird! A mere lesser whale dare to Insult this Great One? Me?! Me, Alister Von Fai?! When I am the most handsome man alive?! Just because I've turned ugly for once?!"

  The whale couldn't understand why he was angry at its honest thoughts. It was basically true that this horrendous human was worse off than a demon. It sighed, then trembled with indignation at the human's actions. It tried to close its eyes to do this ugly man a favor and let it live, for fuck's sake. The whale didn't want to be infected with his ugliness; even a hell full of ugly devils wouldn't accept it.

  But before it could close its eyes, a blinding light flashed in its face. It heard the human voice turn extremely cold, yet vengeful. "I HAVE NO MERCY FOR FOOLS WHO INSULT ME! MORE SO A FOOL WHO POSSESSES NO EYES... BUT MAYBE MY SWORD, 'MERCY,' DOES!"

  SHING!

  In the next moment, the whale was cut in half. Samantha, who was inside the whale, took a glance up above. She saw a straight orange line sear across the fleshy walls of the whale.

  BOOM!

  The walls exploded as the whale was bisected. She turned her head toward him, toward Alister, who looked like an angry child throwing a tantrum because of some petty reason.

  Samantha giggled at his display. She ran towards him and jumped straight into his arms, completely ignoring the fact that she was naked right now. She shouted: "Alister, you've come! You've kept your promise that you'll come as long as I call for your name! Oh, my ugly prince with a shining ugly face!"

  I was surprised at Samantha's appearance. Surprised enough to let my anger subside. I blushed at the sight. Gosh, the beauty of her naked form is just too heavenly. Too much for someone as unworthy as me to catch a glimpse of. I opened my arms and received Samantha’s embrace.

  Oof. Gosh, the sensation of her chest pressing against my face was a heavenly touch. I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, then placed my palm on her cheeks. I lifted her, then whispered to myself. "I guess that you're not as bad as you seem, Mister Whale..."

  I took one last glance at the carcass with respect, as I continued. "I, Alister Von Fai, pray for your reincarnation. I hope that you'll become something more, than an ugly whale and become someone as handsome as me in your next life... Sorry for misunderstanding your great intentions.... I... I......"