Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

Red leveling area (II)

After killing the big cat, she had leveled up to 27. With that, she had gained Blood Pressure, the use of which doubles the power of blood spells and skills, at the cost of quadrupling the blood expenditure. Right now, its value was limited, as were its blood pool, but it would be a great addition when blood reserves were large enough. It was like that when she was level 100 in the game.

The regained skill was Stowaway, a name that reminded her of Eldi, as it was one of his "favorite" names. It allowed her to pick up one of the daggers with her whip, and be able to use it to stab someone. While the force was lower than doing it directly, it had the advantage of range. Also, it could be combined with whip skills such as Dribble.

Another panthers looked threateningly towards the place where its kin had disappeared. They had heard its roars of agony, but they hadn't made up their minds to come closer. Instinct was telling them it was dangerous

Gjaki, for her part, decided to go back the way she had come, since there wasn't much left for dawn. However, she didn't return to the Beginner's village, as the cave was more suitable for her. There was no sun to hide from.

Unfortunately, her connection to the Bats disappeared when she passed through the barrier, so she couldn't spy on the adventurers. Until then, they had broken the camp and had breakfast. They were waiting for daylight to start the working day.

The vampiress had no choice but to resign and console herself with some cupcakes. She loved the sweet ones, and even more so if they had berries, but she didn't disdain the salty ones either. Plus, they added variety.

She went to sleep in her tent-castle, while feeling a little guilty. If she kept this up, they would run out fast. Instead of a normal dinner, she had enjoyed a selection of sweet and salty cupcakes. Nonetheless, despite feeling a little guilty, she still was licking her lips.

After waking up, there were still a few hours of sunshine left. Therefore, she decided to practice her martial arts inside the cave. To do this, she made a doll stuffed with straw, which could hit unceremoniously. It needed to be repaired a few times over the course of her training.

It wasn't a real training, since the weight of the puppet was much lower than a living being, and it didn't defend itself. However, it allowed her to become a little more familiar with the Martial Arts inherited from her home world that she hadn't yet mastered.

She even managed to raise her affinity level with some of them, but it was apparent that she couldn't get much further than that. She needed to use them in actual combat to get them above level 5.

"It's about time," she said to herself after sunset.

She was looking forward to getting out of the cave. Despite this, the vampiress spent a few minutes looking outside. Only then did she come out and summon some scouts.

One of them went straight to the place where she had discovered the adventurers the day before. It found nothing, which meant they weren't there. So, she sent another one to try to find them. She wanted to know where they were, so she wouldn't run into them.

For now, her level was low. Since she was a vampire, the best thing she could do was to keep a low profile, or she risked being hunted.

Likewise, Gjaki decided to move in the same direction as the day before, and was preceded by a Bat. Of course, it wasn't capable of discovering each and every one of the dangers that were hidden in the Crimson Savannah.

Suddenly, something elastic and sticky hit her at high speed. With no time to react, she was caught and dragged away.

The impact had been attenuated by her armor, but it wasn't easy to escape from that retractable sticky prison, which was leading her to a huge mouth. Right now, her agility wasn't much help, and her limbs were going numb due to an anesthetic substance.

There wasn't much time to think, so she decided to invoke her most destructive spell. She was just reaching the mouth when a dark column sprang up around her, the product of the Darkness Pillar.

She was released from the thing that was holding her, as it received the corrosive damage. Gjaki was then able to discover that it was a long tongue. Its owner was a maroon toad more than two meters tall, whose body was half hidden in the ground. It and the tongue had taken the impact of the spell, which had forced it to let go of the prey it was about to gobble up.

Its level was 31, but that hadn't stopped the Darkness Pillar from dealing enormous damage. It hadn't been so bad on the outside of its body, but the corrosive power had seeped into the inside of its open mouth.

The vampiress immediately used Blood Overload to increase her reaction and clear her mind, thus counteracting the effects of the substance that coated the toad's long tongue.

She summoned a Blood Hound and ordered it to attack from within. As she dodged a Lick, the hound took the opportunity to get inside.

As it was faced with such a fierce and unexpected attack, the toad didn't know how to react. The poison inside it was attacking the hound, but also the toad itself was damaged by the mana beast, which wasn't stopped from the damage suffered. At the same time, a dagger-tipped whip was aimed at the toad's eye.

The toad dodged to the side, but the whip changed direction through Dribble. The dagger, which could be there thanks to Stowaway, hit the eye. It caused the amphibian to move frantically, as it tried to get free. The pain was sharp both in its eye and inside.

Gjaki left the dagger in the eye, put away the whip, and wielded a spear. She plunged it into the body of her confused enemy, after which the weapon was released. Then, she wielded two daggers, one level 25 and one 20, while using one of its leg to jump over the terrified predator. It felt attacked from all sides, even from within, and didn't know how to counteract.

Self-Regeneration activated as soon as she touched the toad's skin. A corrosive substance covered it, something the vampire discovered too late. She gritted her teeth to resist the pain, and reached for the second eye as she was hidden in Darkness. She pierced it with both daggers, while feeling her hound disappear. It was unable to hold out any longer inside the amphibian.

Desperate after losing its second eye, it tried to hide underground. However, Digging was too slow, plus it helped the spear pierce deeper. To top it off, Disrupt interrupted it over and over again. Another Darkness Pillar and several hammer blows finished it off.

"Mmmh. It's strange," the vampiress muttered to herself.

As she was resting and her attendants were collecting the loot, she could see several lizard beings surrounding a cave.