Blood Queen Reborn-Chapter 32: Fake Cosmetic

While Quinn was out with his roommates, Erin had been spending her free day in the gaming pods playing Power Fighters. She still felt so weak despite all of her current efforts so far to work with the system. While Layla was gathering blood, Erin would gain EXP here.

Selecting a random level on the fight selection, a match was beginning. An arena formed in front of her, and a boy with short and messy dark red hair wearing pajamas was flexing his hands.

The announcement began counting down.

"3...2...1...FIGHT!"

The boy opposite her surrounded his body with several fully grown trees. After a second, his body bursted out of the ring of trees fully covered in wooden armor. Erin prepared herself and ran at him with her sword.

She thrust her blade, but it got stuck in the wooden armor. The boy grew wood around his fists and punched her in the face.

[-2 HP]

[HP 18/20]

With her free hand, red aura formed around it, and she swung it into the wood, creating a blood swipe. It had destroyed the wood enough for her to yank her sword out.

The wood user was confused as he had never seen this ability before, but in that moment, Erin ran around him, throwing blood swipe after blood swipe.

The wood armor broke apart. The wood user snapped out of his stupor, and created a tree from the ground to form a club.

Erin slashed into the club with her sword, wood splintering everywhere. The wood user ripped his club out of her sword, and punched her again. Erin, however, caught his fist and using her strength, slammed him into the ground.

In that moment, she held her sword up high, and stabbed into his backside

[Opponent has been defeated]

[You have received 25 EXP]

[200/200 EXP]

[You are now level 3]

[0/400 EXP]

[1 attribute point awarded]

[New skill "Blood Bank" unlocked]

After the match was over, Erin was back in the main lobby of the game. She had been expecting some sort of message about evolving again, but it didn’t happen. Secretly, she was thankful that she didn’t need to undergo an evolution every time she leveled up.

Something she had noticed was that fighting with someone in person would grant her a full 50 EXP, but fights in Power Fighters would only give her half that. The exceptions were if she fought someone extremely weak, like Quinn had been initially, but if the reduced EXP didn’t happen then Erin would’ve likely been a level 4 by now, maybe even a level 5.

However, she was much more interested in the skill she had just unlocked.

[Skill: Blood Bank Lv.1]

[The skill "Blood Bank" will allow you to store up to 100 milliliters of blood in your reserve. The Blood Bank will automatically be used to heal the user if HP drops below 5. Every 10 milliliters of blood will be used to restore 5 HP of the user. User may also use the Blood Bank to consume blood at any time for their own personal pleasure.]

She thought the ability was rather useful, even if it was something she could’ve used for herself back at the assembly. It wasn’t an offensive ability like she had wanted, but, if for whatever reason, she found herself not wanting to talk to Layla or Quinn for blood, then she could just tap into her reserves.

With her one free stat point, she put it into agility, and she could already feel herself slightly improve her speed.

[Agility: 18] [+2]

Starting up another quick match, Erin held her sword ready and prepared herself.

The arena formed, and there was a new opponent wearing a long red cape with two daggers. There was also someone sitting in the stands watching the fight, but she didn’t pay attention to him.

"3...2...1...GO!"

Immediately, the caped man took out his daggers and swung them at her, leaving fast moving wind blades in the air. The attack was similar to the blood swipe, only it was faster.

Erin jumped to the side, and swung a blood swipe with a free hand as she ran towards him. She needed to close the distance.

"A red color? What ability is that?" Erin’s opponent spoke.

Seeing Erin run towards him, he swung more wind swipes at her, but she slashed at them with her sword.

With her speed, Erin went for a stab, using most of her strength, but the caped man turned around and covered his body with the cape. The sword left only a very small scratch, barely perceptible to the naked eye.

While Erin was recoiling, the caped man swung his daggers in retaliation, creating an X shaped mark on her body.

[-6 HP]

[HP 18/25]

Erin ducked down, and sliced at his legs with her sword, causing him to step back.

The caped man spun his dagger in his hand, and stabbed onto Erin’s back. Using his wind ability, he forced the dagger to dig deeper.

[-3 HP]

[HP 15/25]

Before he could do anything, Erin’s body shot upward, sending out a blood swipe as she did. The caped man was unable to block in time, and as he was recovering from the blood swipe to his chest. The blade stabbed so deep, she could see the blade sticking out on the other side.

One of the caped man’s daggers was still embedded in Erin. With his last dagger, he tried to stab into Erin again, but she grabbed his arm and headbutted him.

He stumbled back, Erin’s sword still in his chest. Erin began to spam him with blood swipe after blood swipe, dealing massive damage.

Quickly, he covered himself with his cape, blocking all of the blood swipes.

’So my blood swipes aren’t strong enough to penetrate his cape,’ Erin thought.

She grabbed his cape, and yanked him towards her knee, kicking him in the process.

Since he couldn’t see, he grabbed Erin’s sword from his chest, yanking it out, and uncovered himself. He threw the sword at Erin, which she jumped out of the way of. Then, she grabbed her sword, and charged at the man.

With him now exposed, Erin was able to swipe her hands, creating two more blood swipes, which crashed into his body. He fell to his knees, and Erin jumped onto him, blade in hand, and stabbed her sword into his head.

[25+ EXP gained]

[25/400 EXP]

The man sitting in the stands was in awe. Both he and his friend were on a win streak taking turns beating opponents, and all of a sudden this beauty managed to defeat his friend. Not only that, but she displayed some sort of ability that he hadn’t recognized before.

His heart thumped, and he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out, "Please fight me!"

—

In that fight against the wood ability user, the boy was actually recording his fights. It was initially just to rewatch his own battles to try to improve, but had since uploaded his videos onto poutube. He wasn’t exactly a very popular person online, only getting 200 views at most, but the recording of a strange ability never before seen in Power Fighters had him stumped.

When examining the ability list on Power Fighters, there was nothing listed about a red line ability. Unsure of himself, he uploaded the video on the Power Fighter forums asking if there was a chance that someone was hacking.

"Nah, surely there was just an update and that’s why you haven’t seen this ability before."

"Are you sure? I’m looking at the ability list right now, and I haven’t seen anything. Maybe it’s a wind slash with a red cosmetic?"

"Are you fucking stupid? Ability cosmetics don’t work like that."

"I thought cosmetics were banned in Power Fighters?"

"Not banned, more like completely removed. The creator got rid of them a few months ago."

"I hate that they removed mods, I had a really cool flower mod installed."

"My favorite flower is the sunflower."

"WHO TF ASKED?!"

"Anyone in this thread smoke weed?"

"We’re getting off topic! This looks like a hack, and if someone hacked the game, then that’s obviously really bad!"

"Yeah, someone @ the creator because this wouldn’t be fair."

"I think I faced her a while back ago. I was surprised because when I checked her profile, it said she had an ice ability."

"Ah so it was a hack! Mods, ban her."

"I don’t think that’s how it works. We’re on a fan forum right now."

So far, it was just this one singular thread that had this whole conversation going, but it was enough to garner the attention of a particular person.

—

Somewhere, in a messy room, dimly lit by whirring machines, was the green haired boy. He was lurking in the Power Fighters forums page again while he attended school. This particular boy was named Logan Green.

Yet again, there were new posts about someone using some sort of red line ability, making him believe it was the same user. For some reason, her red lines were actually doing damage, making him believe it wasn’t a hacked in cosmetic.

Looking into the forum video that was uploaded, he saw a wood user fight against a girl with a crystaline blue romper. He looked into the two user IDs of that fight. Then, he looked into the IceQueen’s profile and saw that not only was she online, but also had an ice ability selected.

"Strange, despite me using my ability to detect if she hacked my game, I can’t seem to detect anything," Logan stated.

Although Logan wasn’t much closer to figuring out the mystery behind this strange red lines ability, he was at least able to note that the user had been online during hours that matched the same time zone he was in. Assuming this user didn’t have a strange sleep schedule, she might be closer than previously thought.