Chapter 609: Consuming the Blood Current

It wasn't often that Raghi could sneak anywhere, but somehow he was the one being sent into the Earth Union. Experimentation had shown that the invaders were suspicious of anyone with over 500 Power, fearing them to be elites. But if they looked at Raghi, they would assume he was just a thug with a level of strength that didn't threaten them, so they would ignore him.

Hopefully. There was a chance he was going to his death.

As he walked through the village, Raghi instinctively touched the potions that had been sewn into his cloak. Juray had been adamantly opposed to him going to spy on the invaders before he had made it clear how important it was to him. She had compensated for her worry by giving him as many potions as she could, enough that he needed to be selective or that alone would have looked suspicious.

He kept a flask at his belt that could revive him from near death, and that was some comfort, even if it wouldn't do any good against the invaders. Juray was also trying to work on some sort of teleportation potion, but even if she had finished, their aura would have suppressed it.

As he got closer, Raghi saw what they had known: the invaders had taken over an Earth Union palace, demanding to be treated as gods. Because they hated everything on the continent, that seemed to amount to being given what little food and drink they didn't hate, as well as attended to by servants.

There was an Earth Union prince's corpse hanging outside the front, but other than that Raghi didn't see any bodies. A lot of people from the Elemental Nations would be glad to hear it wasn't worse, if he made it back to give them the information.

No one stopped him from entering, because thef invaders didn't need guards. They were strewn across the courtyard, each with servants to wave fans and keep them cool. That seemed absurdly wasteful when there were countless Wind Union methods to move air, but maybe the waste was the point.

"Is there any food that isn't complete shit?" The Class-user named Budajix rose from his stolen throne, hurling a plate to the floor.

"I'm terribly sorry, my lord. I'll have a servant take care of it right away." The second speaker made Raghi stare: it was the Prince of Pebbles. They'd feared he was dead, but here he was, serving the invaders.

Except he hadn't been stripped to rags like some of the other leaders, he was still wearing his noble robes. In fact, he seemed to be sitting beside the invaders, commanding his own people like slaves.

This was already worse than they had feared.

.

..

.

Kai sat atop the corpse of the Razorshark, occasionally taking another bite even though the essence had already formed within him. He could continue like this for a very long time, but it felt good to rest his body without needing to fly or swim from time to time.

The monster he called a Razorshark had been a reasonably powerful one, the larger brother of the vicious little fish that had so terrorized him on their first pass through the Blood Current. Even though he was far more powerful than he had been the first time, it had been a bit of a struggle, and he was interested in what he could do with its power.

Now that he understood there was a larger world, he had new theories about the Blood Current: it wasn't that the ocean was randomly powerful here, the red waves must represent an inflow of monsters from more powerful regions. Why they were here, and why they turned the waves red, he still had no idea.

It didn't matter for his present purposes. Now that he had finally defeated and eaten the Razorshark, he could build a more powerful aquatic ability, which would be an essential step in his path to reaching the golden dragon. Through all his swimming paths and other hunts, he'd tried to stay close, catching glimpses of golden dragons just often enough to be sure he was still in their flight path. But he wasn't going to make the same mistake as last time, which meant different preparation first.

Because he needed to strengthen his new essence anyway, Kai placed the Razorshark into his soul and began swimming toward the dragons' paths. As he did so, he examined the specifically aquatic monsters within his spirit.

<

Sahagin's Soul - XIV (xi)

Razorshark - III (gamma)

Octowrath's Tentacles - V (epsilon)

Great Cetae - X (kappa)

>

Sahagain's Soul had served him well for years, rising all the way to the xi rank, near his current maximum. It had been essential in fighting recently allowing him to eat monsters like the Razorshark, along with an octopus stronger than the others. He also had the Great Cetae's essence from back in Cloudspire, a whale-like creature that had controlled water.

Did it make sense to try to feed any of those into Sahagin's Soul? Given how effective it had been, Kai was reluctant to throw it aside while he was in the Blood Current, even if it one day might need to be replaced.

He settled on developing a second aquatic skill: while it seemed a bit wasteful to use two slots for that, he was currently fighting dangerous monsters in the ocean. The work wouldn't be wasted long term, because he could one day develop a third water-based ability, then merge all three. Until then, his goal was to maximize his short term power in the water, and that meant another ability.

Once he'd decided that, the rest of his decisions were simple. He kept building up the Razorshark essence as he hunted the golden dragon while preparing the other two for a merger. Unlike Sahagin's Soul, which focused on movement and grace in the water, he wanted to develop a heavyweight ability. Actively control the water around him, draw power from the ocean, and be able to fight even the nastiest creatures in the Blood Current.

So, after finding a peaceful part of the ocean, Kai floated and examined the essence within him. This was a simple feeding frenzy, merging the three abilities together:

<

Greatshark's Presence - II (beta)

>

The new "Greatshark's Presence" ability was immediately useful: it seemed to extend into the water around him, giving him stronger awareness and control. Combined with Sahagin's Soul, he could swim faster underwater and hit far harder. That was exactly what he needed.

Before the hunt proper, he needed to deal with that monster that launched crimson spheres from great distances. Kai searched around the path of the dragons, getting a better sense for their flight paths without actually trying to catch one. His actual goal was to lure out an attack... and without warning, he finally got one.

The sphere was still a dangerous technique, but he was prepared: Kai was using both Bloodtail's Armor and the Voidshell Essence that Zae Zin Nim had given him. He took the crimson sphere head on, absorbing the impact and piercing through it, sweeping toward the source.

Kai launched a single Manticore's Sting as soon as he estimated the path, even before he had seen anything. It shot out over the ocean like a thunderbolt, and nearly at the horizon, he thought he spotted the source: a surprisingly small jellyfish-like creature, the same crimson as the spheres. When the Manticore's Sting approached, it shot into the ocean far faster than a monster like that should be able to move.

Briefly he saw it glimmering in the depths, then it was gone. The stinger hit the surface and created a massive water spout that obscured everything else.

Tempting as it was to go after the jellyfish that could launch such powerful attacks, Kai needed to remain focused. There would be future years to fully explore the Blood Current, years when Deadwaste wasn't under attack. His goal now had just been to show the monster he wasn't easy prey and push it away, so that it wouldn't distract him from his hunt of the golden dragon.

That hunt required a completely different set of abilities, so Kai readjusted the monstrous essence within him as he prepared for the hunt. Some of his choices were obvious, and at the last second he removed Baleful Breath to replace it with Monstrous Tail, which might be more useful underwater.

<

Name: Kai Clanless

Total Power: 1192

Monstrous Hunger - XV (omicron)

Cultivation: Nascent Foundation 85% (267)

Savage Heart: 30 (304)

Physique Level: B-5 (525)

Beggar King's Robes: +3 (15)

Soul Level: 9 (81)

Direboar's Strength - XV (omicron)

Behemoth's Heart - XII (mu)

Thunderbird's Wings - XI (lambda)

Sahagin's Soul - XIV (xi)

Greatshark's Presence - II (beta)

Manticore's Spine - VI (zeta)

Monstrous Tail - VII (eta)

-

Baleful Breath - VIII (theta)

Tyrant's Claw - XIII (nu)

Void Gaze - IX (iota)

Famished World - VI (zeta)

Mutefang's Stealth - XV (omicron)

Isulfr's Bite - XII (mu)

Legion Bite - V (epsilon)

Wallcrawler's Feet - V (epsilon)

Abominalgum - III (gamma)

Bloodtrap - III (gamma)

Slime's Immortality - II (beta)

Silver Demon - II (beta)

Voidmaw's Bite - II (beta)

Bloodtail's Armor - IV (delta)

Deepclaw Essence - II (beta)

Deathmaw Essence - II (beta)

Voidshell Essence - II (beta)

>

The growth of his human soul during the incursion brought him extremely close to 1200 Power, which meant he could grow to 2400 total. To do that, he needed to improve his base strength further, and finally bringing down the dragon would be a key step in that process.

This time, after getting the scent of the dragon, Kai pursued it beneath the water. Thunderbird's Wings was a flexible enough ability to use underwater, and combined with his other essences he could move shockingly quickly. But it wasn't enough just to catch up, not with so many other variables. He needed to find the golden dragon at the perfect moment so he could definitely fight and defeat it, then use its essence.

To do that, he went back to his Goralian roots: watching beasts closely, learning their habits, developing a real plan. Maybe he could have won with raw speed now, but the dragon was strange as sacred beasts went, so he thought that learning more about it would be useful.

What he found was that the dragons actually needed to eat, unlike monsters, which mean their paths followed logical routes. He guessed that they moved between continents consuming larger sources of meat, like carnivorous sheep that grazed across multiple fields, and that life cycle made sense to him. What the dragons got out of interacting with humans in Krysal remained a mystery, and he decided that it was going to have to remain one, because in the short term he needed power more than answers.

With his new speed, Kai was able to evaluate multiple dragons until he found the largest and strongest.

It was a real beast, massive with scars across its weathered scales. Unlike the younger dragons, it stayed high above the sea, perhaps avoiding the most dangerous monsters in the Blood Current. But it was also warier, canny from years of life, and fast enough that he wasn't sure if he could intercept it from a great distance.

In that case... Kai's grin might be monstrous, but his smile was that of an old hunter.