Chapter 31: The Nine Shadowlashes

Nathan passed through a few houses, and the view opened up wide—he'd reached the edge of the village green.

The square was no small patch of ground—room for a thousand-plus people, probably built for village gatherings and farm work. Right now it was empty, night wind sweeping across it, desolate as could be.

From a distance Nathan spotted an old well at the center of the green, and right beside it, a treasure chest. Unlike the previous two, this one was silver—and a few sizes smaller—which instantly perked him up.

"A silver chest has got to have good stuff in it. Maybe a skill book, or some kind of enchanted item."

Nathan bounded forward excitedly, but a few steps in, several black shadows shot up off the ground, snagged him, and hauled him flat. Shaken, he scrambled to yank the short swords from the camo backpack—but twice his hand came up empty, his body thrashing too hard to grip anything.

"Crap! Ran into a bloodborn. What the heck is this thing? Why can't I see it?"

Nathan had, after all, been through a month-plus of Sebastian's special training, with combat experience against all kinds of bloodborn beasts that honestly counted as rich. He came to his senses fast: gave up on drawing the swords from the camo backpack, drove the Titan Godslayer Canon, his whole body dissolving into a mass of black light that slipped the bindings in a split second. Re-condensing into human form, Nathan pressed a hand to the ground and slid twenty-odd meters away, escaping the black shadows' pursuit.

Free, Nathan fired up the Comet-Gem Mantis and slashed a backhand vacuum blade-wave into the ground—something in it seemed to sever—and chained flying kicks with both feet, brutally booting away several more black shadows.

Only then did Nathan get a clear look at what had ambushed him and dragged him down: a strange giant tree nearby.

The tree's branches drooped down like thousands of freakish snakes, writhing and snaking all over the ground; the branches he'd broken off were still twisting and coiling where they'd fallen—horrifying in the extreme, with a freakishly stubborn life force.

Nathan's counterattack seemed to enrage the bloodborn tree: every branch on the ground took flight at once, weaving into a giant net the size of a small field and dropping it over him.

Nathan didn't push his luck—one light leap took him out of the branches' coverage. The tree, after all, couldn't relocate; once its enemy stepped beyond the reach of its branches, it could stretch and stretch and never touch anything again.

The fight was over in a blink, more scare than danger—but Nathan didn't let his guard down for it. The two chests back-to-back had loosened his nerves, and now they cinched right back up, his quiet battle-lust climbing again.

Nathan glanced at the chest and found that the silver chest sat squarely within the bloodborn tree's strike range. If he wanted what was inside, he'd have to kill the tree.

Nathan had killed dozens of bloodborn beasts, but never one of this type. The bloodborn tree was huge with no obvious weak spot. His eyes swept around for a while, and an idea took shape.

He hunted around nearby, gathered an armful of twigs and dry grass, drove his vitae to conjure a flame, and lit them. Every bundle he lit, he chucked at the bloodborn tree. The tree apparently lacked the wits to recognize danger; its branches flailed wildly and—several times, incredibly—swept the burning twigs and grass right up against itself.

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After a dozen-plus throws of fire, one of the bloodborn tree's branches finally caught.

The tree's body might as well have been full of oil—one lit branch and whoosh, the fire spread; in mere minutes, every branch was burning.

The bloodborn tree thrashed its branches in vain—not only failing to put the fire out, but fanning the flames on its body higher and higher.

Without wits in the end, the tree had no idea how to kill fire. It let out squealing freak shrieks, branches slapping wildly, trunk shaking nonstop, wrenching its roots out of the ground one by one with everything it had, struggling desperately, as if trying to flee.

As if Nathan would let it escape.

Nathan kept his distance, circling the bloodborn tree on patrol—whichever way the tree tried to flee, he'd lob a long-range vacuum blade-wave, forcing it back to its spot. The tree fought its way a few dozen meters, but couldn't douse the flames; it burned up into a giant torch, slowly charring down to a heap of coke.

Only when the bloodborn tree stopped moving entirely did Nathan go claim the silver chest. As he walked past the charred carcass, the trunk went crack—suddenly splitting wide open.

Nathan jumped, drove the Titan Godslayer Canon, his whole body dissolving into black light—but a long while passed with no movement from the tree. He edged in for a look and found something glossy and green inside the trunk.

He casually drew a dark-gold spear, stretched out his arm, and flicked it—a green scroll tumbled out with a plop.

Curiosity piqued, Nathan picked up the green scroll, and a line of white text appeared out of thin air—Learn the Nine Shadowlashes?

Nathan blinked—then joy beyond measure, and he hollered: "Learn!"

A wisp of green light rose off the scroll and flooded into Nathan's body; countless strange runes instantly sprouted in his mind, and those runes finally became a pale-green seed that took root in his mind.

Nathan opened his palm slightly, and immediately sensed his vitae was a touch more pliant, seemingly easier to control. Following the Nine Shadowlashes, he drew the vitae out into threads, then twisted strand upon strand together—and instantly a finger-thick line of black vitae drilled out of his palm, twisting and stretching skyward.

The Nine Shadowlashes seemed tailor-made for Nathan's black-light vitae—no conversion by the Comet-Gem Mantis needed at all. It stretched close to a hundred meters in one go before he felt his bond-power running dry, unable to extend it any farther.

Nathan tried steering this vitae whip, and every bend and variation obeyed him—handier even than his own arm, with jaw-dropping flexibility. One crack of it blew the already-charred bloodborn tree apart outright; dust billowed everywhere, and he had to wait a while for it to settle before going to open the silver chest.

The silver chest, sensing someone beside it, popped open with a clack right away, just like the two bronze chests before it.

Nathan peered excitedly into the silver chest—and it lived up to looking more precious: over ten times the triangular coins the two bronze chests had held, plus an oval mirror with a card slot on its side. Extremely unusual.

At the sight of so many triangular coins, a small thrill ran through him. One vague grab, and the gold sigil ring pinged again—this time the transfer was 2,100 starlings. For a middle schooler like Nathan, that was no longer just a "small fortune"; even for plenty of grown adults, a few hundred thousand dollars counted as a "fortune."