Bloodstained Blade-Chapter 49 - Alone (End Book 1)
The blade watched them retreat with a fury that made it almost impossible to put its thought into words. If it had the magic of that traitorous elf, it would have smote them both with a pillar of flames. It didn’t, though. It had many of its own terrible magics, but none of them had half the range to reach the two blurry objects that were retreating into the darkness of the surrounding trees.
It took the blade several minutes to calm down at the unexpected turn of events. To it, this was a betrayal of the worst sort. It had spent months training its wielder from a boy into a proper swordsman. It had let him play hero, and in return, it had been tossed aside.
I will have my revenge on both of you, it vowed as it surveyed its new prison.
It was embedded in a thick pine tree four feet above the ground so that its tip stuck out on one side, and its hilt and more than a foot of blade stuck out on the other. It was wedged in there tightly and not liable to fall out. The height and the difficulty a creature would find in removing it ruled out both goblins and beastmen, which meant that it would take a human or orc to set it free and take it up. That was a later concern, though. Right now, it had more than enough energy and souls.
-1 Life Force
+1 Life Force
The weapon was also surrounded by eight corpses and a slowly dying mule that it continued to feast on while it grazed. Those corpses provided it with a distant hum of energy, too, but even better, they also attracted carrion eaters, which the blade could drain as well. It was in no danger of falling asleep any time soon, which was good because the last thing it wanted to do was forget this betrayal.
The Ebon Blade
Life Force: 1531/5000
Siphon: 24-36
Souls: 32/53
Path: Death, Level 5 - complete
Blood, Level 1 - 4/100 offerings.
Reserves: 9 - Your gemstone is large and clear.
Siphon: 7 - Your blade is long and sharp.
Connection: 3 - Moderate - Your hilt is tight but tarnished.
Control: 3 - Moderate - Your runes are clear.
Senses: 2 - Dim - Your hilt is tarnished.
Soul: 3 - Cracked - You are starting to understand your past.
Powers:
Aura of Hunger: Drain Life Force from nearby victims.
Parasitic Link 2: Your wielder provides for your needs.
Death
Drain Soul: Harvest the souls of your victims for later use.
Convert Souls: Devour a soul for its constituent essence.
Ineffective Immunity: Natural immunities no longer protect your enemies.
Deathly Touch: All strikes deal +10 cold damage.
Beyond their Reach: Life drain effects do not affect you.
Grim Reaper: Bonus damage from cold increased.
Endless Malaise: You gather Life Force from the dead.
Blood
Vampirism: Drain more life force from blood
Hemophilia: The wounds you inflict don’t stop bleeding.
Though it had used much of the Life Force it had recently gained in a futile attempt to improve its control over its wielder, it still had significant amounts. Including the amount that it had in souls it had close to 4000, so most options were open to it. Given its current state, though, it decided to give Aura of Hunger a look first. While it wanted more control and more siphon, neither would help it while it was thrust through a tree like this.
Aura of Hunger:
Breadth 2 -> 3 - 1000 Life Energy - Affect up to seven people instead of five.
Reach 4 -> 5 - 1500 Life Energy - Reach up to twenty feet away instead of seventeen.
Speed 2 -> 3 - 1000 Life Energy - Drain a target over twenty seconds instead of half a minute.
Strength 3 -> 4 - 700 Life Energy - Increase Aura of Hunger’s Drain from 25% of your Siphon to 27%.
None of its options were cheap, but initially, it selected Reach for reasons that were related to both curiosity and utility. The main thing was that corpses were spread around it in all directions, so the crows and the coyotes would eat those at the edges first, which were currently just outside its Reach. However, there was also the matter of its cell to consider.
-1 Life Force
+1 Life Force
Even at the height of its powers, it seemed to have a limited reach, which meant that it might max out at level five or perhaps level six, and if it did, well, the blade was inclined to think other levels might as well, and it very much wanted to know its boundaries. It wanted to know all of them so that it could plan for what it couldn’t overcome.
In this case, though, the blade had been right. Once it upgraded Reach to five, the option to upgrade it further disappeared.
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Aura of Hunger:
Breadth 2 -> 3 - 1000 Life Energy - Affect up to seven people instead of five.
Reach 5 - Reach targets up to twenty feet away.
Speed 2 -> 3 - 1000 Life Energy - Drain a target over twenty seconds instead of half a minute.
Strength 3 -> 4 - 700 Life Energy - Increase Aura of Hunger’s Drain from 25% of your Siphon to 27%.
The action had reduced it to only 31 Life Force, but that would be enough for now. Even without increasing its strength, it was able to kill birds in half a minute simply by focusing on them, and those small bursts of one and two Life Force were more than enough to outweigh the steady drip it was losing now that it no longer had a wielder for Parasitic Link to take advantage of.
-1 Life Force
+1 Life Force
When the blade had woken a couple of seasons before, one Life Force had lasted more than an hour. Now, it seemed to take two or three an hour to keep it fed, and that number would only increase in time as it gained strength. Still, for now, it was an annoyance more than a concern, and it ignored the steady drip of positive and negative numbers as it studied the rest of its power set in search of a reason not to increase the strength of its drain next.
Primary Powers:
Aura of Hunger: Multiple enhancements available
Amplify Blade 2: 500 Life Force
Lesser Life Reserves 1: 500 Life Force
Amplify Wielder 2: 700 Life Force
Increase Senses 3: 750 Life Force
Increase Connection 4: 1250 Life Force
Lesser Soul Reserves 3: 2000 Life Force
Improved Siphon 7: 2000 Life Force
Increase Control 4: 3000 Life Force
Empower Blade 3: 4000 Life Force - not currently accessible
Increase Reserves 10: 5000 Life Force
Repair Soul 4: 5000 Life Force
Secondary Powers:
Giant’s Strength 2: 400 Life Force
Speed of Shadows 2: 500 Life Force
When it saw the mere word wielder on its interface, the blade’s annoyance grew. It had actively sabotaged wielders in the past, but it was their own failings that had ended them, and it would never abandon someone until their death. Even with Ren, it had only hoped the Bandit leader would kill him, and he’d been by far its most disappointing wielder to date.
For now, it ignored that, though, and flipped through the powers one at a time, trying to decide whether or not more siphon would be almost as good. Repair Soul called to it, as always, but given the circumstances it was in, it was in no mood to learn more about itself. That would have to wait for some triumphal moment to come.
-1 Life Force
+1 Life Force
+16 Life Force
The only thing it completely ruled out was its secondary powers. Those benefited only its wielders. Also, since it could only have three of the things, it wasn’t even sure these were ones that it wanted to keep long term. For now, it had no intention of increasing either of those, which was a shame because the strange conditions on their powers made it think that they might mutate in surprising ways.
By the time the day ended, the donkey was dead, the predators were beginning to pick at the corpses, and it had calmed down. Though the blade was still angry, in the end, it was only steel, and it would focus on being ready for whatever came next.
+18 Life Force
No one happened through its little clearing of death that night or evening the following one. So, it set to work. First, it noted that though it seemed to lose two to three Life Force an hour, it gained one to two an hour from the miasma of death that surrounded it. On top of that, it gained another five to ten from draining the wildlife that got too close and devouring their tiny, insubstantial souls. So, that first night, before it even devoured the souls it had collected in the battle with the orcs, it was already up fifty-six life force. That put it only five days from increasing the strength of the drain, even if it did nothing at all.
Of course, it wasn’t going to do nothing at all. It devoured five orc souls for 271 Life Force, saving only one so that it could ask it questions later about just how many of the monsters were in the region. For a long time, it had been content simply to hunt, but now that it had been betrayed and had started the Path of Blood, dreams of conquest returned to it.
Conquest was entirely dependent on who its next wielder was. So, for now, those dreams simmered while it collected the life around it and slowly consumed the tortured souls it had stolen from the mirror while slowly upgrading its Aura of Hunger.
Devouring each of those souls was an unpleasant experience, but there was nothing for it. Each time it did it, it was forced to relive someone’s death as their soul was ripped out, and each time, it was almost like it could feel it. It was like it was there. Still, each time, it was what had to be done, and each time, it shrugged off as it built its power to spend on vital upgrades.
+12 Life Force
Only once did the Ebon Blade try to ask one of the women for insight by using them for a question instead of pure energy. Tell me about the man who did this to you. Tell me of Al’Hazzarin. This command had been a whim after it had spent 700 Life Force to increase the Aura of Hunger’s strength to 4. It had also been a mistake.
-1 Life Force
+1 Life Force
The process worked the same as it had on other occasions, but this time, because the woman had been driven mad, it felt more like trying to repair its soul than trying to interrogate a ghost. It had hoped to get some insight into history or some glimpse into a path of power it might yet pursue. Instead, it found only insanity.
+10 Life Force
+14 Life Force
The woman had been imprisoned in that mirror for decades while the mage-king lived, and she’d glimpsed him through that lens, so that was how it did, too. For several minutes, the blade was treated to a high-speed show of convoluted debauchery that ranged from executions to orgies and back again. It was madness, and though some of the events were probably real, the way that they would fall to pieces or blur together with other unlike events in the same location left the blade confused and grateful when the kaleidoscope of madness was finally at an end.
+9 Life Force
It devoured every one of the souls that remained after that, and it found the experience infinitely preferable to its glimpse into pure chaos. Over the course of those first three days, the souls it devoured generated just under three thousand Life Force. Paired together with the hundred and fifty a day it got from its surroundings as vermin were snuffed out almost as soon as they approached, it made a number of upgrades.
-1 Life Force
+1 Life Force
In addition to spending 700 Life Force on Strength 4, it spent 1500 Life Force on Strength 5 and a thousand Life Force on Speed 3. At this point, it could drain about 30 Life Force a minute from someone. That was enough to devour small animals nearly instantly, and it would have easily been enough to drain a goblin in a minute or two. Even a strong human would last only a few minutes, and though it much preferred to slay people directly, with its blade, it would be the easiest thing in the world to leave a trail of bodies behind it the next time a wielder brought it into a city.
+13 Life Force
This satisfied the Ebon Blade. It wasn’t enough to balm the wound of losing its wielder in such an ugly and unexpected way, but for now, it was enough. Now, it only needed to wait for someone to notice the sheer number of carrion feeders circling overhead and come to investigate. Then, it would have what it craved.
