Chapter 22: Sealing the Host's Source Vitae

Nathan yelped in a hurry: "Have you no humanity at all? Fine, I'll tell you!"

Reluctant as he was, he still explained with a bit of swagger: "My bloodline power lets anything wrapped in vitae pass through any material. That punch just now didn't have any real power to it—all I did was keep a rock clenched in my hand. My fist passed through its head, then I let go, left the rock sitting inside its skull, and pulled my fist back out... The result you saw for yourself. Its head went 'pop,' and that was that."

Nathan told it with color and drama, obviously plenty proud of his little gambit.

Only then did it click for Sebastian. He knew Nathan had awakened the "World Tree" bloodline, and he knew that bloodline's special property—but he'd never imagined the boy would use his vitae's quality to kill a Red Howl with a trick this imaginative.

Sebastian let out a wry laugh. The method was out of this world, beyond anything he'd predicted, and it actually raised Nathan a notch in his eyes. The Order of the Deathless heir gave a light chuckle and offered a compliment: "To think of a trick like that—you've got some small cleverness in you after all."

Nathan heh-hehed, clearly eating up the praise—but Sebastian's next line drained all the color from his face.

Sebastian said, coolly: "the Comet-Gem Mantis! Seal the host's source vitae for me!"

The circular emerald screen popped up in front of Nathan again. The Comet-Gem Mantis carried out Sebastian's command, running its vitae conversion unit and sealing away his source vitae.

Nathan ran a quick test. He could still circulate the black-light vitae inside his body, but sending it outside was now out of the question—any black-light vitae pushed out of his body got converted to emerald vitae by the Comet-Gem Mantis. He went hot with shame and fury at once, with a splash of fear mixed in.

That Sebastian could command the war-beast directly didn't surprise Nathan—but that the Comet-Gem Mantis could also seal his source vitae planted real wariness of the beast in him. Not that he'd ever trusted the battle-assisting bloodborn insect much to begin with.

Nathan struggled up to a sitting position and barked: "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sebastian gave a mild smile. "This is for your own good, too! The Yggdrasil Line's innate gift lets you pass through most materials—but run into a bloodborn beast that can disrupt your source vitae, say a Ghost Eye, and what you just pulled would be plain suicide."

A cold jolt ran through Nathan. He knew perfectly well his black-light vitae wasn't omnipotent—the abandoned Between's seal, for one, he couldn't penetrate—but he'd never stopped to think about what he'd do if he met a beast that could break through his black-light vitae's penetration ability.

Sebastian's move wasn't pure goodwill, of course—it was a show of force aimed at Nathan, a way to knock the boy's edge down a peg.

The Yggdrasil Line's ability was so unique that any bloodborn beast capable of countering it would be nearly as rare as the Yggdrasil Line itself—Nathan had almost no realistic chance of ever running into one that could suppress his own bloodline power.

After that battle, the vitae in Nathan's body actually seemed livelier. The fight with the Red Howl had cost him at most a tenth or so of his bond-power; one light push of the Titan Godslayer Canon, one lap of the black-light vitae through the eight wandering bloodways, and he was seven-eighths restored. Even his physical strength had bounced back a good deal—hands and feet no longer weak and jelly-like, muscles no longer trembling. Within half an hour, he felt bright-eyed and brimming with energy again.

Sebastian was quite patient, waiting until Nathan had pretty much recovered before saying, evenly: "You gimmicked your way through that last fight, so today's training isn't over. You'll bring down one more bloodborn beast."

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"What!"

Nathan shot straight up, shock and fury maxed out, hollering: "I nearly died just now, you know that?! If I weren't smart enough to use the Yggdrasil Line's gift, I'd have stopped breathing by now—and you want to run the training again? My source vitae is already sealed by you! How am I supposed to beat another bloodborn beast?"

Sebastian offered no explanation whatsoever. He traced a sigil, muttered the incantation, and the stone wall soon cracked open again. In under ten minutes, another bloodborn beast crawled out of the pitch-black hole in the wall.

This beast was covered in black fur like a great bear, but with a pair of horns sprouting from its head, built like a giant elephant—and it was even more savage than the Red Howl.

By now Nathan was so furious he'd cursed out every ugly word he knew. His last fight had leaned on the "Yggdrasil Line's" special power—jamming a rock into the Red Howl's skull—to kill that red-furred beast. With his source vitae sealed and no way to rerun the play, he had zero confidence about beating another bloodborn beast. But since he was as good as dead anyway, he'd lost all his wariness of Sebastian.

Sebastian didn't get angry in the least, saying with a smile: "If you've got the energy to curse, you might put it to better use thinking about how to fight!"

Nathan got chased around by the other bloodborn beast in total pandemonium, scrambling every which way across the ring, hollering: "Damn it! The Comet-Gem Mantis is completely freaking useless, and the Comet-Gem Mantis Style's killing power is way too weak... How am I supposed to fight?"

His "mightiest" killer move—the vacuum blade-wave!—couldn't do a thing to a beast even more vicious than the Red Howl. This boy, whose "courage" had long since run dry, could only feel that Murphy's Law had it in for him today—this was no lucky day at all.

Sebastian watched Nathan "spiritedly" fleeing for his life with a smile, in a pretty good mood. He thought privately: "This little guy has no real talent for combat, but he's still halfway workable material. He's been through one battle now—his combat experience hasn't grown much, but at least his hands and legs don't go soft with fright anymore."

Several times Nathan tried to push the black-light vitae, but every time he forced it out of his body, all he got was emerald light flashing—so he had to give up on that approach, helpless.

Out of options, he thought of the Ennead Crucible again!

Yesterday he'd been happily riding the Titan Godslayer Canon and hadn't deliberately trained the Ennead Crucible—but the Ennead Crucible had been cheerfully devouring black-light vitae all the while, and its power seemed to have grown respectably too. Now, cramming at the last minute, it didn't let him down: the Mystic-Gold vitae answered the call, flowing into motion with the slightest push, running freely through the Solar Bloodway and the Saturnine Bloodway—and jacking his speed up thirty percent in a flash.

Rarer still, Nathan discovered the Comet-Gem Mantis could only seal the black-light vitae—the Mystic-Gold vitae was completely unaffected.

Once burned, twice shy: Nathan would never wave the Mystic-Gold vitae around openly again. He hid it underneath the Comet-Gem Mantis's emerald vitae, poured it into his palms, and took the gamble of charging in close to the beast.

He had no choice. The vacuum blade-waves the Comet-Gem Mantis put out were far too weak—honestly weaker than plain fists and feet—so he had to go all in: Mystic-Gold vitae flooding his palms, stabbing for the Horned Bear's eye sockets...