Scarlet

I quickly rush all of the people in the room to the bunker which quite fortunately is in this very room. Probably because it’s one of the most worked in rooms in the floor, seeing as it’s the set.

After doing that and locking the door, I quickly make my way to the door leading to the hallway. Only to stiffen up when I see a demon on the other side of the slightly cracked open door.

|Demon Fomorian – Subspecies: N/A – Level 102|

Oh shit.

I spin around, placing my back to the wall while hoping against hope that the demon didn’t see me.

Are you fucking kidding me? This is a Class II Fracture?!

The demon’s footsteps stop right outside the door, leaving me just hearing its heavy breathing. Demon fomorians are kind of like the spawn of a Class I Fracture in a way but are also just a tiny bit more intelligent than them, even if they aren’t full on sapient or able to speak still. So they aren’t just rabid beasts running around killing everything they see. More like a hunter going around its territory instead.

They’re also bipedal creatures, and they wear similar yet different armor to the huntsmen in Class I Fractures, what with the armor being made from that hide like substance that looks like leather. But they also have some sort of sword made out of bones as well a metal not found on Earth. One that is strong enough to cut through a Class II Guardian, much less a Class I like me.

I hold in my breath as I begin to hear sniffing sounds, kind of like a dog sniffing out an interesting smell. And the sounds slowly come closer to the door before I see a hand reaching inside through the crack, only to latch onto the door itself and begin opening it.

Shit.

Without wasting a second, I turn on my terminal and point it towards the door that’s opening while stepping out from behind it, then pressing the flash button on my terminal that’s meant for this exact situation. An incredibly bright light then shines out of it, completely blinding the creature on the other side of the partially opened door before I shift my arm and raise it, summoning four swords of blood – the amount I can summon having gone up since leveling the skill – and sending them straight at the creature while charging it myself with my arm raised to strike.

The creature wildly fumbles around, flailing its arms with its eyes closed, and I try very hard to avoid those as I charge. But that only grows more difficult after my swords of blood all strike its armor, not actually doing much of anything beyond piercing like half an inch in and knocking it onto the ground where it then flails around a little bit, accidentally kicking me in the process and sending me into the wall with a grunt.

Shit, this is harder than I thought.

I wipe a little bit of blood off of my mouth with my jacket sleeve before stepping forward and raising my terminal again as the fomorian slowly blinks open its slit eyes. The moment it sees me raising my terminal though, it lets out a hiss and rushes at me with incredible speed, bowling me over and sending us both rolling down the hall for a bit until the creature ends up slamming into the wall with me on top of it.

I blink for a second, surprised at the result, before immediately reaching for its neck and grabbing it with both of my hands. But the fomorian doesn’t just sit still, even after the impact with the wall that is now severely cracked, and it reaches for my clawed hand around its neck while letting out sounds akin to something in between a hiss and a growl.

A wave of pain floods me from my hand, light cracking sounds beginning to come from it as the fomorian tries to squeeze my clawed hands and pull them away, but I ignore the pain to continue squeezing its own throat, my claws ever so slowly sinking in deeper and deeper thanks to blood sacrifice fueling my strength. And right when it begins to sit up, pushing me partially off of it in the process with me only barely holding onto its throat still, I use both blood boil and life drain on the creature, making it stagger again and fall back down. Then I manifest four blood knives right above my head and send them flying straight into the slits in the creature’s armored helmet, going right into its eyes.

The creature convulses on the ground for a few seconds, and right when I begin to think it’s finished, the creature’s tail – which I had forgotten all about – whips around and slices straight into my side, cutting a massive gash in it that sends me flying off of its body.

I cough out a mouthful of blood after landing, the pain in both my side and hands too much to get up. But I still try anyways, not wanting to let it finish me off. Only for a message to appear in my vision.

[Blood Thirst Effect applied. Stack is now 1]

And immediately after seeing that, I slump back down onto the ground, my efforts abandoned.

Fuuuuuck… this hurts.

I continue lying on the ground, trying very hard to ignore the pain in my side as I listen for other sounds on the floor. And I do hear what sounds like two other fomorians on the floor, each far away, fortunately.

Good thing they have such loud footsteps. Oh, and tails that drag on the ground. Those help too.

“I would suggest you crawl to a room to hide in,” Tar says, and I can’t help but agree with him. So I begin dragging myself with my clawed arm until I reach the set room I was in before where I close the door and just collapse fully onto the ground, lying flat on my back as blood flows down my side.

Damn, this really does hurt.

Then the emergency lights go out, making me gape at them for a few seconds before barely managing to mutter, “Oh shit.”