1% Lifesteal

His brain was too sluggish to catch on to what the woman was trying to say, and before he realized what she meant, she raised her hand and manifested a life spark—but it wasn\'t pink. It was a ghoulish, flickering gray.

His eyes instantly shot wide open. "Where did you get that?" he asked.

She grinned. "The corpse of the deviant you killed."

There was no such thing as the strongest tempering technique. They each had their functions and goals. But when people thought of notable ones, most remembered the Spark of Undeath.

Affinities weren\'t made equal. This was perhaps most evident with the death affinity. While the stage-zero generic tempering technique of the water affinity was Water Body, a relatively unnoteworthy boost to the balance of liquids in one\'s organism, the generic technique of the death affinity made the user unkillable.

Well, not really. But it was close enough. When death-affinity beings flooded their own bodies with their essence, they made their life spark resistant to death itself. Simply put, the cells in their body no longer died from anything other than being directly destroyed.

The only way to "kill" them was to destroy the brain, which made the soul vacate the body, and even that didn\'t stop the body from simply living on, at least until it was fully devoured by fungi and bacteria.

This came with numerous demerits. So many, in fact, that some countries had banned the Spark of Undeath tempering technique entirely.

The first significant downside was the fact that the user would have to live through unimaginable agony if a big part of their body was destroyed.

For this reason, it wasn\'t too uncommon for undead archhumans to be reduced to a state where they were begging for death.

Or worse, in the case of the other major downside, as well as the main reason why so many cultures outright banned the technique, the user was driven so insane that they were functionally reduced to a monster.

His fatigue was magically cast away once he realized what he was looking at. The numerous implications and possibilities flooded his head to the point where he got a headache.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he pinched his forehead and raised a hand to stop her. "No," he said. "Not now. We can talk about this later."

Nodding, she said, "Tomorrow morning, then?"

"What time is it anyway?" he asked.

"It\'s 1 a.m.," she answered, pointing at the massive clock on the other end of the room that he hadn\'t noticed.

He sighed. "Just go home for now. See you tomorrow at noon if I can wake up on time." He started getting up. "If I don\'t, wait for me in the lobby."

"Wait!" she called.

Stopping, he turned to face her. "What?"

"I…" she started, blushing for some reason. "I\'m uh… I\'m currently homeless. Can I crash at your place?"

He blinked at her. "What?" he asked dumbfoundedly.

"Well, I uh… I\'m kind of broke at the moment…" she explained.

That left him stunned. Clenching his jaw slightly, he rubbed away the incoming headache. This blasted death essence coursing through his body wasn\'t making his life any easier.

He was about to say that she should just rent a place somewhere. He\'d even give her the money. But would she even know how to do that? Not to mention it was 1 a.m. He did not have the energy to help her find a place to stay.

For a brief moment, he entertained the idea of giving her fifty bucks and the directions to the shithole he\'d camped at when he first arrived in Nova York, but…

Sighing dramatically, he turned around. "Sure," he said. "Just… Never mind. Follow me."

"Yes, sir!" she shouted cheerfully, mock-saluting him as she got off the bench.

***

Freddy had been hoping that the late hour would mean avoiding people as much as possible. Unfortunately, in such a major city, attention was unavoidable.

It turned out that when a massive, masked man wearing full combat gear dragged along a small woman wearing filthy, ragged clothing, people got strange ideas. The looks he received on that walk were some of the nastiest he\'d ever witnessed in his life, and the masked helm was the only thing keeping him from dying from embarrassment.

It also really didn\'t help that Sophia appeared relatively young. Supreme-quality healing removed any signs of aging, so outwardly, it was impossible to tell how old she was. She just looked young.

His steps froze. An anxious feeling bubbled in his gut as he turned to face the strange woman. "How… How old are you?" he asked. If she had been studying martial arts for fifteen years, she had to be at least… twenty… right?

"I\'m thirty-two years old!" she replied cheerfully.

"Pfft—" he spat. "Excuse me!?"

"What?" she asked. She put her arms on her hips and raised an eyebrow. "Why are you so surprised? Wait, how old are you?" she returned the question. "No, wait, let me guess! Uh… forty… four?"

He chortled. "Close enough. You\'re only off by a factor of two."

She paled. "You\'re eighty-eight!?"

"What? No, dumbass, I\'m twenty-two!"

She gaped. "Ooooh…" Then she frowned. "Wait, what!? God, you\'re such a geezer, though."

"Says the thirty-year-old teenager," he retorted, shaking his head.

She must be from one hell of a strange place, he mused idly.

Throughout the short walk back to his apartment, he felt some life return to him. He couldn\'t do anything to banish the death essence from his body, unfortunately, so he would have to wait until it slowly drained through the clash with his life force.

Thankfully, he didn\'t have to worry about becoming deathly ill. Usually, something like this could leave a human bedridden for months.

In a matter of minutes, they made it to his place. As soon as he walked inside, he realized that there was a major problem—where would she sleep?

The small armchair sofa wasn\'t big enough to sleep on, and as far as he knew, there were no spare sheets in the bedroom. There was only a single blanket on the bed.

Sighing, he walked into the bedroom and grabbed his one and only cover. He folded it in half and placed it on the floor in the living room, making an improvised futon.

She peeked into his room with squinted eyes and then looked back at him.

He sighed. "What?"

"You know, a true gentleman would offer his—"

"Unfortunately, I\'m not a true gentleman, and I will kick you out on the streets if you don\'t keep your mouth shut."

"Duly noted," she said jokingly, saluting him again.

He shook his head. Now that they were indoors, he noticed that she smelled… well… exactly how she looked. His own body had at least been wiped clean at the infirmary while she radiated the stench of dried blood and sweat.

"You can shower first," he offered.

"Oh, now you\'re being a gentleman?" she mocked. "I\'ll need a change of clothes, at least."

He sighed, walking into his room. As far as clothes were concerned, he had close to nothing. As he became bigger and bigger, he constantly outgrew his clothing, and whenever something became too small, he donated it to a nearby charity he walked past whenever he went to the library.

All he had at that moment was a giant gray hoodie and the luxurious slim-fit white shirt as far as tops were concerned, and his sweatpants were gigantic. The torn jeans he bought were also way too big. Technically, he also had his gym clothes, but they were stashed away in his private locker in the gym.

"Wooow…" she chirped, leaning over him and staring into his closet. "How can men live like this?"

"Rich coming from a woman who has nothing." Sighing again, he threw the slim-fit shirt at her. It was still approximately seven sizes too large, but that was all he could offer.

Her frow burrowed slightly as she brought her nose to the shirt. "This smells like smoke," she said, leaning even closer. "Oh, and women\'s perfume. Ugh. Gross."

Growling in frustration, he tore the shirt from her hands and walked into the toilet. After squirting a few drops of hand soap on the shirt, he used Create Water on it and scrubbed it over the sink. After thoroughly washing it off, the manifested water rapidly evaporated back into water essence and disappeared, leaving the shirt completely dry.

"Here you—" he started, turning around to hand her the shirt, only to find her staring at him with an absolutely mortified expression. "What?" he asked.

"You did not just wash a fancy shirt with hand soap! You animal!"

He rolled his eyes. "Better than women\'s perfume and smoke, isn\'t it?" he said as he threw the shirt back at her.

Squinting, she asked, "Any chance you have a hidden closet with extra bottoms?"

"Nope," he said. "You can take the sweatpants if you want."

She groaned at that. "If that\'s how you wash your clothes? Hell no, thank you very much," she said, moving slightly out of his way so he could leave the bathroom.

He left and sat in the living room while she finished. What he wanted more than anything at that moment was sleep. Interacting with this woman was more exhausting than the death essence that was literally killing him.

Eventually, the doors of the bathroom opened, and she—

"What the fuck are you doing?" he asked, staring at her.

She had squatted down and pulled the shirt over her knees, and now she was waddling forward like a fat, white penguin. "I don\'t want you to see my legs," she declared.

He watched her slowly make her way to the improvised futon. Then she rolled over and lay down. He couldn\'t stop himself from laughing a bit as he shook his head and took his helmet off. He turned to face the woman, who was now looking at him with wide eyes. "Hmm?" he hummed at her. "Is there something on my face?"

"Yikes," she said. "I thought you were hiding your face because you\'re ugly… and now this is really awkward."

"For the record, I wasn\'t \'hiding my face.\' I was protecting my head. And thanks for the compliment," he said with a smirk. "Please do keep your hands off me, though; I know you have some trouble controlling yourself."

"Ha-ha. Don\'t worry, your personality will keep me at bay."

"What\'s wrong with my personality?" he asked. "Actually, don\'t answer that."

"Where do I begin…?"

"Oh, what\'s that? You want to sleep on the street?" he asked as he cupped his ear.

She shut her mouth and shot him a petulant glare. Then she rolled over to the other side. "Good night."

"Good night to you, too," he replied in a saccharine-sweet voice as he walked over to the bathroom. After finally properly cleaning himself and getting ready for bed, he walked into his room and moved the nightstand in front of the door to block it off.

There were no keys on the bedroom door, unfortunately, and he wanted to ensure that she couldn\'t sneak into his room and slit his throat or something. He didn\'t think she would do that, but she had proven herself dangerous enough to warrant caution.

She must have heard the sound of him moving the piece of furniture as she suddenly started laughing in the other room.

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "Laugh all you want, you crazy… You already tried killing me once. I ain\'t taking any chances."

Rather than respond, she just laughed harder.

He shook his head and lay on the bed. Moments later, his eyes slammed shut, and he fell asleep.

***

Rahal walked into the underground section of their compound. The gray concrete walls dimly reflected the weak light from the ether lamps scattered through the hallways.

He slowly made his way forward until he reached the end of the path he was heading down. There, he turned around and walked into the elevator.

There were seven buttons, each taking to a different floor. Rather than press one of them, he held 5, 6, and 2 simultaneously for three seconds. They glowed yellow upon being pressed and, after being held, turned red.

The elevator went two floors down and then turned right, traveling to the secret prison chamber.

When he stepped out, he walked into a small room, which was nearly empty other than the four people who were in it, with its only notable feature being the large, one-way glass window that looked into the chamber where their heavily restrained prisoners were held.

Three guards stood to the side with their weapons in hand.

And in the middle of the room, sitting on a fancy office chair, was Nahar, the young patriarch of the Kraven Clan.

Rahal stepped forth and knelt before him. "Greetings, Patriarch," he greeted his nephew.

"Yo, uncle," Nahar greeted him in turn. "Any news about the blood samples?"

He tried not to sigh. "Nothing. As far as the tests can conclude, these two are ordinary human beings."

"I see," the young patriarch said, sighing. "What do we do about this…?" he asked nobody in particular.

The two prisoners trapped in the room both hung off heavily reinforced metallic chains. The chamber itself was warded to prevent any possibility of an escape.

The first among the two, the man who introduced himself as "Kaefalge," was resting with his eyes closed. Both he and the woman—Firrita—had numerous small scars around their mouths.

The two had been questioned endlessly, and some questions were… forbidden. That was the only way to put it. Whoever was their backer had placed some form of curse on them, and if they tried sharing information about certain things, a blocky, strange phenomenon would manifest around their mouths, censoring any sound coming out and leaving lesions over their tongues and the general mouth area.

Frankly, it creeped everyone out.

As far as their story of what happened to the former patriarch was concerned, either they had perfectly synchronized a made-up story or they were telling the truth. Rahal had been convinced that they were almost definitely lying. But things, unfortunately, weren\'t so simple.

Questions about their origin or any information on their background seemed to be censored through this strange curse. The most unusual part about that censorship was that they themselves didn\'t seem to know that it had been placed on them, and they had seemingly no idea what they were allowed to say and what they weren\'t.

Things only got more complicated with the details they inadvertently let slip through. Mentions of strange cultures and mysterious locations, information about the nature of ether that seemed more advanced than what humanity had, and the total lack of knowledge about modern society stood out the most.

They had only returned from their hunt after these people earlier that day, and as soon as the young patriarch saw them, he demanded they be put into the highest-security containment unit they had.

After Rahal heard the details of the patriarch\'s mission with Madame Morleppe, his reaction was instantly justified.

These two were the ones responsible for the destruction of Camp Violet, an incident that happened at roughly the same time as the patriarch\'s death.

That discovery didn\'t perturb Nahar at all. He merely asked them a single follow-up question: "Did the person you claim killed the patriarch also have square eyes?"

They said no.

"If I may ask, Young Patriarch," Rahal started. "For what reason did you ask whether that one-star they claim to have seen also had square eyes?"

Nahar clicked his tongue, tapping his index finger on his leg as he stared at the two hanging prisoners. "Because the person they describe might be the person Madame was searching for."

Rahal\'s eyes widened as he lifted his head. "Do you mean…"

"Indeed," Nahar said. "Freddy Stern."

That made him freeze. If that was the case, the ridiculous story of their two captives just became more credible. Rahal\'s eidetic memory was one of the main reasons why he held the position he did, so it naturally took him a mere moment to recall the man\'s connection to the bloodshed remnant.

And, if not outright explain, it would at least justify Madame\'s interest in the man.

"How is that possible?" he breathed out.

He wasn\'t willing to believe it, though.

A one-star had killed his brother, the patriarch? That was simply too absurd to consider.

"I don\'t know," Nahar said. "But the massive skulls they claim to have seen might also be connected to this somehow. The anomalous realm we found was populated by strange wisps that invaded bodies. That is most definitely the origin of these two."

"Do you suggest that the man who killed the patriarch was also possessed?"

Nahar pondered it. "I don\'t know," he said. "Maybe. But if his eyes hadn\'t changed, it could be a different type of possession. Or maybe he turned it around, absorbing some form of power by overcoming a trial?" the man mused. "In either case, this spells trouble. The man Madame was looking for is still alive. She seemed to be sure of it… And if that\'s the case, there is an ungodly monster capable of fighting way above his rank somewhere out there."

Rahal\'s expression hardened. "Do you think he\'ll come looking for revenge?"

Nahar pondered the question. "I hope not," he said. "We already have more than enough trouble to deal with."