Chapter 36: Loot Drops From Bloodborn

"This string of Thunder-Struck Rowan Beads is worth thousands of starlings. Every single bead has been empowered thirty-plus times by master chanters fluent in the Thunderlight Litany—one bead alone is enough to slay a low-tier bloodborn beast. Those beasts you killed in training these past days couldn't have taken even one bead."

Nathan rubbed the string of beads in his hand, dead certain these were ordinary little thunder-struck rowan seeds—worth a few hundred dollars, tops, which converted to a measly few starlings—and he finally said: "So basically, an ordinary string of little thunder-struck rowan seeds, as long as you get someone to chant the Thunderlight Litany three thousand-odd times over it, appreciates a thousandfold. That's a hell of a margin."

Sebastian couldn't be bothered bantering anymore and sneered: "You don't know jack!"

Nathan didn't argue. "How do I use this string of Thunder-Struck Rowan Beads?"

Sebastian said grumpily: "Pour vitae in to activate the Thunderlight Litany. Throw it, and it detonates on contact; if it doesn't hit anything, it self-detonates after a five-second delay."

Nathan couldn't resist marveling, exclaiming: "This thing's got real engineering! No worries like the grenades in those old war movies—somebody picking it up and throwing it back at you."

Sebastian couldn't be bothered engaging with that line at all, and asked: "When are you going back into the abandoned Between?"

Nathan pocketed the Thunder-Struck Rowan Bead string and said, flat: "Right now works."

There was no way for Nathan to know whether Sebastian had told him the whole truth—or just wanted the Phantomveil Vine captured fast, before any delay did his mother's body damage that couldn't be undone.

Sebastian clapped his hands softly, laughing: "Decisive! I like it!"

Nathan turned to Wren: "Head home first. Try not to tell anyone about this."

Wren nodded. She badly wanted to give Nathan a warning, but in front of Sebastian some words simply couldn't be spoken, so she could only stay silent.

Sebastian paid the bill with great largesse, and the three of them left the coffee shop together.

The coffee shop Nathan and Wren had picked was close to Elderrow—a hundred-odd meters' walk and they were inside it.

Nathan didn't let Wren follow any farther. With words still on her lips, all she could do was watch the two of them enter the yew-wood house with longing, anxious eyes. She gritted her teeth and whispered: "I'm going to find Granny Rowan. She's the only one who can help."

Nathan didn't take out the portal. He watched Sebastian trace the sigil and open a pitch-black maw of a hole in the stone wall, a faint unease stirring in his own chest.

At bottom, Nathan was still an ordinary middle schooler—no adventurer's spirit, no warrior thirsting for battle.

Last time in the Hourbound Grove Training Ground he'd scored plenty of gains, but he'd also run into danger more than once. If not for Sebastian's threats, he might well have gone a long, long time before ever braving that abandoned Between again.

Sebastian opened the abandoned Between's entrance and said to Nathan: "I'll open the entrance once an hour and wait twenty-four hours for you. If you're not back within twenty-four hours, the Ironweave Grub in your mother's body will act up. The consequences... you work those out yourself."

Since his vitae resonance, Nathan had not only formed his vitae ripple and succeeded at the Umbral Turning but mastered the Star-Swallowing Form—his strength had taken a leap-type jump. In the abandoned Between he'd swallowed masses of pale-gold thatch for a bond-power rating boost of nearly a thousand points and picked up the Nine Shadowlashes besides; his confidence in his own strength was already running high.

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If Sebastian hadn't rolled out such a dirty trick this time, he'd absolutely have gone for the man's life.

Sebastian made an after-you gesture, then suddenly seemed to remember something and asked: "How exactly did you get out of there last time?"

Nathan said, evenly: "There are plenty of fissures in there—should be those void fissures you mentioned. I was being chased by a whole crowd of bloodborn trees, fell into a fissure by accident, and that's how I got out."

As if he'd tell Sebastian the truth and hand over the fact that he owned a portal. With the portal in hand, who knew—some day it might be good for sticking it to Sebastian.

Sebastian laughed it off. "Lucky you had the Yggdrasil Line to escape that way—but that method's dangerous. Maybe next time it won't dump you outside; maybe it drops you into the void turbulence, and you never come back."

Nathan gave no reaction whatsoever to the warning-laden words. Without a sound he drove the Titan Godslayer Canon, turned into a streak of black light, and bored into the black hole in the stone wall.

Ten-odd minutes later, Nathan's feet hit solid ground, black-light vitae coursing over him—and he let out an inward yelp: "Crap!"

This time, his luck was terrible!

A dozen-plus bloodborn beasts were brawling right at the abandoned Between's entrance. The bigger crowd was a pack of Giant Fangs, and the one they had surrounded was a beast flame-red all over, ape-like in shape.

Nathan had never seen this kind of bloodborn beast—but just seeing it radiate savage menace under a whole pack of Giant Fangs' mobbing without losing ground told him how fierce this red-furred ape was.

Nathan's arrival instantly drew the attention of both the Giant Fangs and the flame-red ape-like beast—and neither side hesitated for a second before pulling him into the brawl.

Nathan groaned inwardly. His strength had genuinely risen a lot, but he hadn't yet adjusted to that new strength, and he had zero experience brawling mixed-in with this many bloodborn beasts. All he could do was dodge like his life depended on it, trying first to open some distance.

The Giant Fangs were one thing—he had experience dealing with them.

But that red-furred ape was the real deal. Its speed edged out Nathan's by a hair; several of his retreats got tangled up by it—almost like it was doing it on purpose—with a casual swipe shoving him right back into the melee.

After several failed attempts to break out of the beasts' brawl, Nathan got genuinely pissed. His hand flipped open, a dark-gold spear appeared in his grip, and—forget spear technique—he reared back and hurled it with everything he had, dead on target: that red-furred ape.

The red-furred ape's speed might have edged out Nathan's, but it was tangled up with several Giant Fangs and had no room to dodge—a freak shriek, and it watched helplessly as the dark-gold spear punched through its chest, skewering it cold to the core.

The strike landed; Nathan didn't linger—out of the fight in the shortest possible time, opening dozens of meters from the beast pack.

Sebastian's special training showed its payoff at exactly this kind of moment. Distance opened, Nathan instantly drove the Comet-Gem Mantis; the sixteen-foot-plus bloodborn insect phantom rose outside him, twin scythes sweeping, and a vacuum blade-wave chopped out, hard.

After his vitae resonance, Nathan possessed the vitae ripple every bloodborn dreamed of. That hundred-thousand-hertz ripple had metamorphosed his vacuum blade-wave into a high-frequency electromagnetic blade—power up several dozen times over and more, matchlessly sharp, able to shred nearly any material, inflicting destruction at the molecular level.