Chapter 7: Parasite Lifesteal

Zarian armed everyone with dark swords except himself. For the sake of simplicity, each sword was the same copy. They were long enough for added reach without being detrimental in tunnels and enclosed spaces.

Zarian figured everyone had to be more careful with the potential fights to come. Wally’s death kept them all grounded about the reality of their situation.

Para was their best problem-solver right now. She was a good meat shield. She could scout. She acted quickly, could strike in multiple ways, and scaled with Willpower and meat.

Zarian was Level 16 after the goblin takedown. He dumped his Free points on his best stats. Mysticism received 15 points. Willpower received 10 points. Wonder received 5 points.

He was inclined to think Wonder helped with perceiving the unnatural. Maybe even touching on extraordinary circumstances and luck.

Or it was the stat for faith. The police officer with Basic Healing scaled with Wonder. Maybe more Wonder would’ve helped Zarian save Wally before he met his demise.

If not Wonder, I’ll grow Agility to be faster on the draw next time.

Now his stats looked like this:

Willpower: 51

Strength: 15

Agility: 14

Wonder: 37

Mysticism: 135

The growth in stats, especially Mysticism, relieved the pressure on him by a lot. Maintaining the dark swords for everyone wasn’t easy.

Para ate the goblin corpses to refuel herself. Then she stored away Wally’s body and cleaned up the scene on the bottom staircase, leaving it spotless.

Being transgressors seemed to be a big deal here. Zarian figured it was best to leave less evidence of their kills whenever possible.

Zarian sat near the staircase entrance with his grimoire cracked open. Naomi and the police officers coached the others into basic weapon swinging techniques.

They treated the swords like a fusion between batons and machetes. Zarian was pretty sure that was wrong, but he’d never done martial arts with swords before.

Instead of trying it out, he focused on studying the pages in his soul bound grimoire. It didn’t seem to offer much more than what he already had, though.

No matter where he flipped, the heavy symbols and scribbles remained indecipherable to him. His Identify trait wouldn’t work on any single line or shape.

His personal level was probably too low. Or he needed to raise the grimoire’s skill level. It could be a combination of both to access more spells.

It was unfortunate that Bloody Lifesteal wasn’t that offensive.

“Or am I looking at it wrong?” Zarian rubbed his hand over a scrap of Para. “You’re a part of me, aren’t you? Yeah, you are. Hmm.”

Zarian pondered for a little while. He tracked the aura flowing inside of him.

For now, he was okay. He could feel it ticking down slowly. Thankfully, having more Mysticism seemed to increase recovery of the magical substance.

The great news was how the consistent practice helped Straight Darkness grow. His best alpha skill was becoming more refined.

Zarian felt confident in maintaining the shape of the eight dark swords. Even when members of the group moved under the weak sconce lights, Zarian kept his swords sharp and hard.

Naomi broke away from the others to join him. She stood attentively, waiting for his acknowledgement.

That was weird of her. She used to terrorize him when he was a recruit. She’d once tracked him down at a former trap house in the hood and made him run sprints with her in the early hours.

Maybe she really cares about me, Zarian thought.

He couldn’t be sure. But it felt like that. Or she was her own brand of crazy and would do anything to survive.

It was unfortunate he’d dragged her into a fight against corruption and goblins. But he was inwardly happy he had someone trustworthy backing him.

He would strip the flesh off anyone’s bones if they hurt her.

“Yes, Sergeant Washington?” Zarian asked.

“It’s Staff Sergeant.” Naomi shifted awkwardly. “I ranked up last week. But that doesn’t matter here. Let’s go with Naomi, if that serves you, sir.”

“Uh, sure, I can work with that.” Zarian tilted his hooded head. “Anything else, Naomi?”

“I went through the list. I had thirty options. Three of them are rare, and also the best. Can I have your help with choosing?”Explore new novels on novelbin(.)com

Zarian nodded, patting the stone floor by him. Para was keeping watch of the staircase and the doorway at the top. She would warn them if another wave of goblins appeared.

Naomi took a seat beside him. “The police officers are thirsty, by the way. Hannah and Jack, too. Bianca says she’s alright, but she’s probably lying. I feel it a little, but not as much as the others.”

“You have the most stats in Strength and Agility. Either stat or both could improve your physical condition overall.” Zarian gave Naomi a half smile she could see under his hood. He kept his own needs to himself.

He’d been ignoring his thirst and hunger the whole time. He had the benefit of more physical stats than normal. But not by much.

“Would those monsters have water?” Naomi asked.

“The Slave Cook might,” Zarian said. “A cook would have water. Boiled, too. Now, let’s look at your options.”

She told him her top three choices. They looked something like this:

Choice one:

Two:

Three:

“Damn,” Zarian said.

Naomi sighed. “Exactly my point, sir. I didn’t get enough of ... Wally’s expertise when I should’ve. But I got the gist during his fastest rant. This life-and-death game requires some strategy. The points I receive can decide what stats and powers become stronger down the road. But once I choose, I’m picking a specialty. And specialties aren’t perfect for every situation.”

“You’re right about that.” He had his own concerns for being an extremely dark and evil-aligned edge lord of the Infinita Star System.

It looked like one of Naomi’s options would make her evil aligned, too. Zarian wasn’t sure if he wanted her to go down that road. Although, it could be nice to have another evil presence other than him.

“Can I explain my thought process?” Naomi asked.

“I’ll listen,” Zarian offered.

He was interested in how a non-nerd would handle this. Zarian had his biases, but people outside of geeky niche cultures could offer unique insights.

“Each class is rare, which is better than the rest. Each of these classes offers different approaches that can help in the here and now.” Naomi lowered her voice. “One, the Battle Psion Initiate makes me think it deals with PSYOPs and mental shit. I can probably do some crazy stuff to people’s minds.”

Naomi jerked her head at the police with the Command skill.

Pushing the gruesome factor, Para dug needle-thin wires into the flesh of the goblins as if she was going to consume them from the inside out. Or do way, way worse than that.

Before Zarian secured total victory, the goblins responded after the element of surprise came and went.

Four goblins used Shadow Rush to slip away from Para’s hold. Four others used Shadow Strength, bulking up with shaded muscles.

Bianca revealed herself from behind Zarian, one hand holding a dark sword. The other hand raised to direct her Searing Flash skill. She wore a brave face as she risked her life again to play her part.

Zarian was glad to see it, but God, did her skill hurt. Zarian felt his inner darkness roiled from Bianca’s searing light. His flesh felt a little sunburnt, like he was developing a rapid rash that would flake and itch like hell.

The damage wasn’t lasting since Bianca was low level, but she was going to be a pain for him once she grew stronger.

The pain was worth the reward. All the goblins with Shadow Rush turned solid again, surprised and hurt. They screamed even more than when Para had them.

The goblins with Shadow Strength stumbled and lost some of their might, but they proved more durable as they stumbled forward on a blinded attack.

Thankfully for Zarian, Para wasn’t blinded and kept entangling and draining the life out of the goblins. The goblins with Shadow Strength slowed down heavily, and Zarian recovered faster.

He saw the dark sword in Bianca’s hand was still there.

It was a little ragged from the Searing Flash, but enough remained for Zarian to fix it up. Its edge became sharp again.

Naomi stepped into the room. She muttered her skill as she pointed at her primary targets, the agile goblins. “Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Spike, Mind Spike.”

The goblins dropped to the floor, holding their heads, screaming in pain from brain-hemorrhaging migraines. They would have a hard time using their alpha skill to rush around.

Naomi grabbed Bianca and guided her forward to team up on a single goblin. She helped the young woman with expert patience while hyper attentive to danger.

Zarian looked over his shoulder. “Come and get these levels.”

Jack swept in first, followed by the police officers. Hannah shuffled inside last.

By then, Para had chewed through the strong goblins. She looped her threads in and out of their bodies. It was horrifying to see, like watching dozens to a hundred long and thin worms wriggle in and out of humanoid creatures.

It looked like Para killed faster from inside the targets. She seemed to enjoy the horror-show this way. She purred against Zarian’s back with each death of the strong goblins.

The combination of Parasite Cloak and Bloody Lifesteal, while Zarian had his stats empowered by the Overpower trait, was, well, overpowered. Zarian controlled the entire scenario with some help from the others and fed kills to his group.

Naomi and Bianca killed two agile goblins together. Jack and the officers worked hard to kill one agile goblin.

Zarian wrapped up the final goblin with his parasite and slammed it into the wall.

“Where’s the Slave Cook?” he asked, using Identify to translate the goblins’ words.

“Kill you, kill you, kill you. I’ll fuck your corpse, stupid, tasty human! I’ll find your family, corrupt them, then eat them alive!” The goblin raved madly, spitting and thrashing.

Zarian asked it questions a few more times while Para sliced, drilled, and wormed into the goblin’s flesh. It didn’t seem to care or understand its situation. It kept promising obscene acts of violence.

Were all goblins like this, or was this the corruptive work of the Shadowfell Tears?

His growing curiosity almost wanted to see a human example.

“Hannah,” Zarian called.

“I’m not like you. I’m not strong enough,” she said.

“I’ll help you.” Zarian placed his hand gently on her sword hand.

He guided her sword to the goblin’s neck. He gently urged her and she did the rest, shoving the tip harder and harder because of her lack of Strength. Eventually, she gouged out the goblin’s throat and spilled enough blood until it died.

“My family had a farm when I was growing up,” Hannah said shakily, staring with eyes wide at what she’d done. “Mama made me get chickens and kill them from time to time to eat. This feels different.”

“The goblins are way worse than chickens.” Zarian let Para store the body instead of eating it.

She could save it as a snack for later.

“Did you get anything from that monster?” Jack demanded from Zarian.

“No.”

“My bad, sir,” Naomi said.

Everyone looked at her in surprise for apologizing. Zarian figured she was blaming herself for not grabbing a mind controlling skill.

The other option was having Lincoln use his Command skill.

Zarian wasn’t sure if he trusted any of the police officers yet.

“We’re stronger now,” Mark bragged after catching Zarian’s gaze.

Zarian identified their low levels. “Good for you.”

Zarian was now Level 17. All three skills had leveled up. Straight Darkness, Level 7. Grimoire of Black Magic 101, Level 4. Parasite Cloak, Level 4.

He invested 5 Free points into Agility.

Naomi had mentioned her reaction time was far quicker than before the integration to the System. That sounded like something Agility would improve.

There goes my perfect min-max build.

Oh well, better reaction times might come in handy for later.

Zarian looked around.

The trash in the room looked like a mix of rusted odds-and-ends and garbage. No serviceable weapons remained, just snapped swords, broken shields, heavily dented armors, and splintered spears.

He used Identify and received a bunch of details from common items with no magical effects. Yup, all trash.

“Back to the side quest,” Zarian said. “I wouldn’t trust using anything here.”

“Um, Zarian, sir, your book is glowing,” Bianca pointed out.

“It does that,” Zarian said dismissively before glancing at the flipped open pages.

There was, in fact, a glow. It was not red or black. The grimoire was open to a new section where the pages emitted a ghastly black, green light. Zarian read some of it and found that they made sense.

“Oh, wow,” Zarian said.

“What is it?” Naomi asked.

“Necromancy.”