The struggle continued for over a minute as the two rolled on the ground as if they were two brawlers in a competition. Neither seemed to have complete control yet. However, that situation was quickly changing.
Since Arthur hadn’t sustained any extremely heavy damage, he was able to retain most of his strength as he slowly restrained the deer. Meanwhile, the monster was already bleeding profusely from multiple injuries so it was noticeably growing weaker by the second.
But, that didn’t mean that the boy wasn’t in a huge problem. His health bar has been constantly getting damaged since the fight started and it was getting closer and closer to the danger zone. Even though there was no actual damage on his body that should’ve been lethal, Arthur would certainly die if he didn’t kill the deer quickly.
“Why are you so… annoying!!” At this point, Arthur was feeling really frustrated. He had been rolling in the mud and dirt for two minutes straight trying to kill it while stabbing its side and yet the deer seemed to have endless vigor as it didn’t stop fighting even when its side was punctured like Swiss Cheese.
The boy’s calm demeanor was gone and he was now completely enraged. He hadn’t expected the fight to be stretched for this long. He was feeling threatened and on the edge. He didn’t know what to do at that moment except for stabbing the monster as fast as he could. But, the latter wasn’t giving him that many opportunities.
‘What should I do? Dammit, it’s not giving me that many chances, you know!’ Clenching his teeth, Arthur yanked the monster to the side. However, at that moment, he suddenly remembered something. ‘Right! I have that, don’t I?! Why didn’t I use it from the goddamn start?!’
With no time to waste, Arthur fought his way out of the brawl and jumped on his feet. The deer also stood on its feet and faced him. Their eyes stared at one another angrily.
“You bastard! I have tried to be peaceful with you. Now, I’m going to show you why messing with me isn’t all fun and games!” With a loud yell, Arthur lifted his hand up. ‘I don’t know if this is how you do it. But, well, I guess it’s time to try.’
Closing his eyes for a moment, Arthur suddenly felt a rush of mysterious energy course through his body like a raging river. The energy seemed to appear out of nowhere as it moved up to his hand.
At the same time, the blue bar in the corner of his vision went down by almost 40%. However, the boy didn’t care about that as the next second, something mesmerizing happened. His hand which looked normal a second ago was suddenly covered with a thick red liquid.
The liquid manifested out of thin air and wrapped around it like a cloth of some sort, going from the wrist up to the tips of the fingers. Reaching that point, it extended up, forming extremely sharp claws at the end. The transformation didn’t take a second and the result was a mesmerizingly cool set of bloody claws like that of a terrifying beast.
“Holy!!” Arthur found himself at a loss for words. “This is so cool!! Blood Claw is no joke! You see this, Mr deer?!” Arthur looked at the creature with a grin. The latter seemed confused at first but then it snapped out of it and dashed toward him at top speed.
Perhaps it felt the threat that came from this sudden appearance of a bloody claw. But, Arthur didn’t feel any pressure as in his right hand was the sword, and in his left hand were the claws.
The two closed the distance between each other and clashed violently again. The sound of the sword hitting the antlers echoed in the entire forest. However, this time, Arthur used a different approach. Instead of trying to overpower it, he let the antlers slide off the sword to the side.
Granted, he had no actual technique to perform such a move to perfection so he sustained considerably heavier damage. His health bar reached the 40% mark. However, he ignored it as the next second, he moved to the side, and with his left hand, he slashed at the deer.
The claws moved on its skin, tearing it apart with shocking ease. It was as if they were cutting through soft butter. Immediately, blood gushed out of the injury like an endless tide, covering Arthur’s body. The monster screeched so loudly, that it almost ruptured the boy’s ears then, it suddenly fell to the ground, shaking and struggling.
In a matter of seconds, a giant pool of blood accumulated around the dying deer before it stopped moving completely.
Meanwhile, Arthur heaved up and down as he stared at the dead monster with a shocked expression. “One… hit?”
His eyes slowly shifted to the bloody claws with shock. All it took these claws was one hit and the monster was immediately dead. He didn’t understand how that was even possible, but it somehow was.
“These claws… They’re insane!! The damage is ridiculous!” Laughing to himself, Arthur watched as the claws vanished a few seconds later since their time ran out.
[Ding!]
[You have killed a level 2 Fanged Deer.]
[+3 Strength, +2 Mind.]
[You have gained +110% experience points.]
[Ding!]
[You have leveled up!]
“Oh, nice! I already leveled up!” Reading through the information, Arthur was delightfully surprised. “So that bastard was a level 2 monster. No wonder it was almost stronger than me.”
Looking up, Arthur also noticed that his health bar, mana bar, and stamina bar all had returned to their max. “Leveling up resets them, huh? Well, good to know.”
Rubbing the back of his head, he finally sat down and exhaled a long breath. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm down. “That was unnecessarily dangerous for a first fight. Couldn’t I get like a weak rabbit to hunt for my first-ever kill? Did it really have to be a goddamn man-eating deer with a chainsaw for teeth and a telephone pole for antlers?”
Laughing to himself, he looked at the dead animal. Surprisingly, it hasn’t disappeared yet as he would’ve expected from an RPG game. Instead, something else appeared in his retina after he finished reading the notifications.
[Dead target detected.]
[Would you like to use ‘Blood Eater’ ability on them?]
[Accept.] [Refuse.]
“Hmm, interesting. So the Blood Eater works on its own without me needing to do anything. That would be really helpful. If I kill several enemies, I don’t want to go around sucking them all off one by one… No, that isn’t the right word to use, is it?” Frowning, he shook his head.
‘Accept.’
The moment he tapped that button, things changed. All the blood around and inside the deer suddenly started rippling and moving as if it gained a life of its own. Then, it rose into the air at the same time, forming a giant bubble of blood on top of the dead animal.
The ball then slowly floated toward Arthur and entered his body through his hand. The boy watched the magical occurrence with pursed lips. “Nice.”
[Ding!]
[You have absorbed the target successfully.]
[Absorption efficiency 10%.]
[+2 Agility.]
“Isn’t that efficiency a little too low? Well, it’s still level 1 so that is logical. I wonder how many more points I can get from killing something once it levels up.”
The potential of Blood Eater was quite insane. Suppose he considered that most other people didn’t have such an ability in their arsenal, which meant that Arthur was getting far more benefits per kill than any other player. That difference naturally piles up with time and will naturally make him rise above and beyond everyone else.
As he was like that, Arthur heard some noise from a distance.