Moon Glaive

Chapter 16: Bloodstar

"Ughhh!" Bloodstar spat out a mouthful of blood. He sneered as he tried calming his trembling body. A tree trunk appeared before him, and he rested his back along it.

"Nightmare fuel...I must thank you..." Bloodstar clenched his third-degree-burn-filled hand. The simple movement of his fingers was enough to send him into agony, but what else could he do but run? It wasn't like his enemies would let him heal completely before chasing him away.

Not only his arm but his entire body was covered with burns spots and stripes. His manacore was at the bare minimum level of mana, so his stomach twisted and turned from his movement. He had to puke on numerous occasions in the escape alone.

But despite the severe repercussions, Bloodstar was glad to have used it. Only an attack on that level could incapacitate a powerful figure like Axer enough for him to escape.

"Too weak...I'm far too weak." He huffed a sigh. From his tattered robes, he pulled a vial filled with a dark-red liquid – blood. Specifically, troll's blood.

Bloodstar managed to open the vial despite his trembling arms. How irritating. He drank every drop of blood in the vial until nothing remained.

Bloodstar grimaced. It tasted sour like a rotten orange yet burned like a ghost pepper – a terrible, truly horrific taste. However, a soothing warmth passed through his body as the blood fell into his stomach. He watched in amazement as the burns on his hands healed at a visible rate. No matter how many times it occurred, the ability never ceased to amaze him.

It's only thanks to this that I could gain such a magnificent ability.

He placed a hand over his heart. Its once rapid beating had now calmed into a dull thump like a slow drummer. But as he listened closer, letting the sound of cricket chirps fade away, letting the rustle of leaves fill his mind with lake-like calmness, letting the very sound of night vanish from his presence, he heard it. The hum of...something. On and off. On, on, off, off, off, on, off, on. The sound of it whirring.

A piece of metal it was. A burnt, soiled scrap that had barely been jutting from the wet soil of a freshly eroded earth. A violent rainstorm had swept the forest hours prior, tearing up the great magnolia trees and laying them on the ground like corpses amidst a battlefield.

Bloodstar knew not what possessed him to visit that forest, at that time, over a decade ago. Was it because of the potential rewards from reaping the carcasses of the forest's dead inhabitants? Was it because his mother, who asked for nothing yet gave her everything for him, nurtured one such inhabitant with all her strength? Never had he received an answer for any of it.

...

"Urghh...what is...this..." He had been wading through the collapsed trees and murky sea of pink. But now he stumbled upon a particular intersection with tree upon tree stacked up vertically while stretching horizontally. Left with no choice but to remove the obstacle, Bloodstar clutched the trunk thicker than the length between the tip of his finger and his elbow and pulled with great force. It didn't budge.

All I can do is climb.

Standing nearly a two-story building's size in height (how in heaven had it collapsed to become like that?), it posed a difficult obstacle. Bloodstar's trembling, bone-thin arm reached out, grabbing the trunk with difficulty. The damp soil sticking to his bare feet chilled his body. It was cold. Terribly cold. But he had no choice. Or did he? He couldn't tell. All he needed was a remedy. A cure. A potion to rid himself of the pain.

Go. Push. You can't be weak!

Bloodstar hoisted himself up. A tangled "web" of wood and branches was his opponent, which he meant with burning vigor. He broke the branches in his way despite the pain running through his arms each time. He scaled the humongous tree trunks, clutching branches and whatnot to stabilize his figure. And finally, after a struggle of untold minutes, Bloodstar arrived at the top.