1% Lifesteal

The commander\'s horse.

It struck its forehead, and half the shaft sank into the creature\'s body. It limply fell to the side, and from what Freddy could tell, the fall broke the commander\'s leg.

At first, he was shocked at how far the bolt went despite its weight. But as he grabbed a second projectile, he quickly realized that it wasn\'t despite its weight—it was because of it.

Not only did it allow him to offload more momentum into it, but due to its greater density relative to wood, it didn\'t slow down as much due to the air friction, and finally—and perhaps most importantly—he felt like he had greater control over it. The small mistakes he made had a lesser impact on the trajectory.

With a wide grin, he pulled back, threw the second projectile… and missed miserably. Well, he missed the commander, at least, but he still hit the soldiers. The javelin went straight through a soldier\'s head, then through the torso of the man behind him, and finally into the leg of a third fighter.

"Wow," Freddy admired the insane striking power.

As he turned around, he finally noticed the party of low-rank delvers staring at him with eyes wide open. He simply shrugged at them and called the girl who was busy bringing more projectiles, "Hey, you."

"W-who? Me?" the girl stammered nervously.

"Yeah. Can you please bring some more of these bolts?" he asked nicely.

"Uh… Yes! Right away!"

He quickly grabbed a third projectile and threw it again.

At this point, the soldiers appeared panicked, but as the injured commander was pulled up to his one good leg, he shouted and gave the command to charge. The soldiers obeyed, shouting as they marched forward and raised their shields.

After a few more throws, Freddy hummed, walked to a corner, and sat down.

He had come there intending to hone his Hydraulic Throw, but he had unexpectedly learned quite a bit about javelins. Or, at least, his preference for them.

He closed his eyes and focused, and slowly, the shape of the ballista bolt formed from his blood.

If he squinted really hard, it looked perfect!

But actually looking at it revealed a number of serious flaws.

The surface of the shaft was bumpy and uneven, the shaft wasn\'t entirely straight, and the spearhead wasn\'t sharp at all.

The shell in his soul, as it was, didn\'t satisfy even one of the requirements he had to fulfill. But that was to be expected. He still hadn\'t even settled on a final shape yet.

Something else bothered him, however. Although the blood javelin was roughly the same shape and size as the ballista bolt, it was much lighter.

Freddy\'s blood was quite thick and heavy. But this was because of Abyssal Depths, which compressed the water in his body. But when he hardened his blood with essence, that water evaporated, which resulted in a relatively light-weight material.

This was actually considered a major strength of the blood affinity. Hardened blood could be made incredibly solid and tough while being lighter than most metals in existence.

Freddy wasn\'t a massive fan of this when it came to the javelins, but he understood the rationale behind it. Once Blood Javelin was upgraded a few times, and he had Accelerate Blood Projectile in the form of a solid ability, he could make the lighter projectiles fly way faster than their heavier equivalents.

He tested the newly formed blood javelin and felt somewhat disappointed with the results. The lack of weight was noticeable. Sighing, he was about to try making another one, but he quickly found a significant problem—a javelin of that size and thickness cost a lot of blood.

There was no point in being a cheapskate with his blood. Not only would he have far more of it later, but there was also absolutely no point in making his ability useless just to be able to use it more frequently.

But this shape cost over 4 liters. That was too much.

Thus, he decided to make the projectile less thick for his next attempt. It kept the cost under 3 liters, but holding it was a little uncomfortable due to the slim shaft. He ultimately settled for a compromise, making it a bit shorter while keeping the thickness comfortable.

As for the tip, rather than making a spearhead, he settled on a simple spiked tip—the whole thing was just one solid piece of metal, so a traditional spearhead didn\'t make sense.

Ultimately, he only made a total of 4 javelins before his blood ran too low. If he wanted to practice more, he would need to secure better ways to maintain his blood reserves. There were blood pills he could eat to produce blood faster, but he also desperately needed the Crimson Spring tempering technique for his bone marrow and the Blood Absorption ability.

The siege continued raging on, with the armored troops slowly losing their numbers.

To his surprise, the more powerful fighters still hadn\'t budged from their lofty perch upon the battlements, even if some were throwing projectiles already.

Clearing out this wave wasn\'t difficult, but it did take longer. The armored men were considerably more resistant to projectiles, and they came equipped with better siege equipment. They brought hooked ladders and battering rams, but they didn\'t get a chance to use them.

As soon as they came close, the weaker delvers lit the jars of flammable liquid and simply threw them down. The armored men cooked like chicken in tin foil—their screams again made Freddy remind himself that they weren\'t real people.

Throughout the whole wave, Freddy kept aiming for the general, but his attempts were foiled by a wall of shields. Eventually, he got pissed off and threw a catapult boulder. It broke straight through the shield wall and crushed the commander\'s chest.

When the wave was near to completion, Freddy found himself shocked to discover the vast amount of reflux essence flowing through his body. Hydraulic Throw wasn\'t an expensive ability—most of the cost was covered by the satellite—but the uses had accumulated, leaving him flushed with nearly 300% reflux water essence in his body.

While the last few soldiers were being cleaned up, he sat and meditated to flush the essence out. He could only bring it down to 200% before the next wave started.

And as soon as the next wave began, he spotted most of the powerful delvers jumping off the wall and down into the fields. This included Thor and Travis.

The reason why they jumped was instantly apparent.

A nearly uncountable number of armored soldiers walked out of the surrounding forest. Infantry, cavalry, archers, siege equipment operators—and they were all one-stars nearing the peak, with as many as five mounted generals wearing glorious golden armor and winged helms surrounding the fortress, their power well into the second star.

"Well that escalated quickly…" Freddy muttered aloud as he cocked an eyebrow.

His eyes were immediately drawn to the large pieces of siege equipment, especially the trebuchets and catapults. Those could do some serious damage. His thinking seemed to be mirrored by the delvers, who were also focused on running straight at the engineers operating these pieces of equipment.

He watched the Lapis Clan run forward at incredible speed. They seemed to be using Water Step, a tricky water-affinity ability that compressed water beneath the foot to propel the user forward.

They could create barriers of ice instantly, blocking numerous projectiles as they wove between others like butterflies dodging raindrops. Their swords cut through the soldiers\' equipment like a hot knife through butter. That was the power of Water Edge, an ability that circulated water across the edge of a blade at immense speed, greatly enhancing cutting power.

He saw people from other organizations achieve similarly impressive feats. He watched shadows form into tentacles that threw soldiers aside, flashes of light that blinded whole battalions, explosions of fire, shards of earth, buzzing metal blades, vines growing and entangling groups of soldiers with ease.

And lightning.

He saw Thor raise his axe and swing it forward—in the next moment, a shockwave impacted a trebuchet and exploded with lightning, burning the piece of equipment and several surrounding soldiers to a crisp.

Freddy had thought this wave would be a bit troublesome, but it seemed like this was little more than a warmup for the powerhouses.

He watched one of the trebuchets launch a massive boulder, and he briefly panicked as it looked like it would strike a tower, but two stars flashed, and an arrow zipped at immense speed and struck the flying projectile, shattering it into rubble.

The source of that projectile had been an archer woman who had remained behind on one of the towers. Seeing her rapidly fire out a number of arrows that swiftly and efficiently culled soldiers and intercepted incoming projectiles, he was starting to feel really inferior in regards to his ranged option.

What could he even do if he faced someone like that in combat? He only stood a chance if he could get close enough to use Leviathan\'s Fury, and even that was questionable.

Sighing, he grabbed a javelin and got to throwing. But this time, his resolve was reinvigorated. He tested all sorts of javelins and paid close attention to how their shapes and features impacted their performance. The more tests he did, the more sure he became that the ones with fletching were better than those without it.

His throws gradually became more accurate, and the "specific direction" rune was already clearly formed. Getting it to become the "precise direction" rune would take a long while, but it no longer seemed impossible.

Although the delvers\' offensive started strong, finishing this wave seemed like it would take a while. The delvers were obviously managing their resources and sparingly using their abilities.

The only person who seemed to be really going wild was Thor. The man was singlehandedly clearing an entire side, and just as Freddy looked, he saw him cleave a commander—and his horse—in two with one swift swing.

Thor was fast. Like really fast. That seemed to be the man\'s main strength. His cumbersome weapon moved like it was made from hollow plywood rather than pure metal.

As Freddy kept throwing, he kept overloading his body with reflux essence, requiring him to take frequent breaks. But he was doing some good work, too.

Any soldiers that came close were doomed the moment Freddy set his sights on them. Even if he missed once or twice, he\'d get them eventually.

Eventually, the wave was cleared out. Freddy couldn\'t see any more invaders.

But the next wave didn\'t start.

Before he could even wonder why that was the case, he spotted a shadow-affinity archhuman in full synthetic gear carrying a soldier wrapped up in a cocoon of shadows.

The other delvers nodded at him as he walked back up on the wall and put the soldier down.

Nobody touched the tied-up soldier.

All the delvers sat down and started meditating instead.

It seemed that they trapped the last soldier to stop the new wave from arriving before they could get back to top shape. But as half an hour and then a whole hour passed, he started to wonder what was happening.

Freddy sighed and walked back down to the battlements.

Many of the delvers noticed him, but nobody paid much attention to him. In fact, they almost seemed to be dismissive of him. It seemed that his display of mediocre ranged skill hadn\'t impressed many of the onlookers.

Ignoring them in turn, he walked up to the shadow-affinity user. "Hey," he called. "Do you mind if I ask what\'s happening?"

The man looked up slowly and cocked his head. "Hello," he said softly. "Is this your first time here?"

"Yeah."

The man chuckled softly. "Figures. No surprise you\'re lost then." He proceeded to slowly take his helmet off. His face was delicate and slim, with vividly colored lips and eyes like that of a fox. His shoulder-length black hair washed over his head, and his eyes turned up to look directly at Freddy.

Freddy didn\'t react outwardly, but inwardly, he was shocked. He recognized this man. This was Shawn Gem—the brother of Jason Gem. He kept his cool, however, and made sure to give away nothing through his body language.

"Well, allow me to explain it to you," the man said, putting his helmet on his lap. "The next wave is much more challenging than the one we just fended off. With the number of people we have, we shouldn\'t start it before we get to around twenty minutes away from the end of the challenge."

Freddy raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

The man smirked. "We can\'t beat the next wave with just the people here. This way, we can still retreat and wait for the challenge to be over if we get overrun."

Freddy scowled at that. "That\'s a big jump in difficulty."

The man chuckled. "It very much so is. I\'ve only heard legends about the wave after it, but it has never been defeated."

"Huh… Okay. Keep that soldier safe then."

The man chuckled. "This isn\'t the only one we\'re keeping alive"—he pointed at the other end of the fortress, where two more delvers Freddy hadn\'t noticed were keeping soldiers hostage— "but sure thing," the man said playfully. "Oh, and a word of advice…"

Freddy squinted at the man. "Yes?"

"I suggest you contribute more to the next wave. Your reward won\'t be much with the merit you\'ve gathered so far."

After standing for a moment, Freddy nodded. "I\'ll keep that in mind." And with that, he returned to the tower.

Time passed. For the most part, the delvers were working to get themselves to the optimal condition, but a small scattering of weaker folk were rummaging through the battlefield.

The soldiers looked like humans, but they worked like monsters. They all had an inherent talent—a general boost to their physical capabilities. And just like monsters, they could appear as deviants.

The weaker delvers were rummaging through the corpses in hopes of finding a prime vestige. The odds of finding one were awfully low. Even if one had appeared, it was likely that someone stronger had already picked it up.

Freddy ignored them and worked to slowly flush out all the reflux essence in his body.

To this end, his soul construct was quite valuable. The dungeon was rich in ether, but it had no sentient ether constructs inside due to the constant resets. This made it a perfect place to gather in the Netherecho with his projection.

To his surprise, he actually spotted a small vestige.

Huh. Must have appeared recently.

That was quite rare, but it wasn\'t unusual given the density.

It looked like a small, muscular human girl wearing overalls and it had a shovel as a weapon. He wondered what its concept was.

Freddy rushed at it, only for it to scream out in horror. "Wait! Please! Don\'t kill me!"

He paused at that and cocked an eyebrow. "Hmm?" he hummed while lowering his weapon.

"I\'m one of the delvers!" she said, panicked.

Freddy froze. "Oh, shit! Oh fuck, I\'m so sorry!" he shouted, deeply ashamed of his lapse in judgment.

This wasn\'t a vestige. It was a projection.

"You scared me…" she said, taking another step back.

"My bad," he said, apologizing again. "I mistook you for a vestige."

"I… At least nothing happened."

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

Silence settled between them.

"So yeah," Freddy said, scratching the back of his hooded head. "I\'m gonna stay over here, close to my body. You uh… Have fun there. No hard feelings, I hope?"

She nodded, and they stepped away from one another.

Freddy moved back, and he spotted her lose sight of him much sooner than he lost sight of her. Her range of vision was shorter than his own, given the difference in power.

He couldn\'t hold back his curiosity. This was the first time he encountered a stranger in the Netherecho like this. And given that she couldn\'t see him, he failed to resist the urge to spy on her a bit.

He saw her look around anxiously. Then, she plunged her shovel into the ground.

To Freddy\'s absolute bewilderment, she successfully made the shovel sink into the ground in the Netherecho. He was amazed. From what he knew, the Netherecho was just a reflection of physical reality, and there should have been no way to affect the reflection without touching reality.

But to his surprise, he watched the woman scoop up the aura effortlessly and put it on a pile. Then, to his absolute shock, he watched the pile of scooped-up aura turn into something between a wisp and a vestige.

It looked like a pile of shifting rocks. It lacked the ability to speak or move, likely as it hadn\'t actually formed into any kind of concept.

Then, without further ado, the girl proceeded to bonk the mass of rocks on its head. It unraveled, and a decent amount of ether flooded into the woman\'s body.

Freddy\'s mouth was agape at the sight. This woman… she could affect the aura of objects with her soul construct? The number of possible uses this could have was uncountable.

He waited patiently until she returned to her body and took note of where she was sitting.

Then, as he returned to his own body, he saw that it was the girl who had kept diligently bringing projectiles from within the tower. From what he could tell, she was eighteen or nineteen years old. She was wearing a tight synthetic cap, and all her hair was trapped within. She was noticeably muscular, even through her equipment. Her face was flush with fatigue.

Her deep brown eyes moved around, and she finally looked at him.

He nodded at her and waved. "Sorry about that," he said.

"It\'s fine." She grinned awkwardly and scratched her cheek.

Freddy wanted this woman.

Not like that; he wanted her as an ally. She didn\'t seem to realize it, but her soul construct was possibly immensely valuable.

What would happen if she used her soul construct on a cursed item?

Could she pile aura endlessly until she created a vestige? If so, could she willingly create rare vestiges, like holy or unholy affinity vestiges, or even possibly something like a tzenekite vestige?

But how would he get her on his side? Not only was he awkward as fuck, but he was also an intimidating guy.

His gaze flitted across her companions, and he squinted thoughtfully. An idea sparked in his mind. "Hey," he called.

The whole group turned to face him.

"You guys have been quite helpful today," he said. "If you don\'t mind, I would like to treat you all to dinner after this is over."

"Hell yeah, brother!" The bald guy instantly agreed. "I\'m down."

"Yeah, I\'d be okay with that, too," his cowardly friend added.

The other three seemed a bit reluctant, but after incessant goading by their friends, they finally agreed.

"Good! Hope you guys have a big appetite!"

The waiting continued, and he chatted along with them a bit. Baldy and Shorty—or rather, James and Michael, talked the most out of anyone there.

They asked Freddy rapid-fire questions about his power, where he was from, and how he got so strong, and blah blah blah—meanwhile, the girl with the soul construct—Janice—sat timidly in a corner while their other two friends who had manned the catapult—Ian and Amy—mostly just talked to one another. They appeared to be married.

After a while longer of rest, they decided to get as much ammo prepared as possible.

There was a lot of waiting left, so way before the next wave started, they already had a massive pile of ammo prepared and almost no space left to store it.

Thus, they simply waited to recover their strength and got mentally ready for what was to come.

From what they said, it appeared that they wouldn\'t stay on the tower for long. As soon as any danger appeared, they would retreat into the tower and hide until it was over.

Eventually, Freddy noticed the other delvers stir. They nodded, and the final members of the last wave were finally killed.

The next wave immediately began.

Freddy\'s breath was taken away by what he saw.

Lines upon lines of soldiers, all at the peak of the first star, with numerous elite warriors at the second star, appeared from the forest. They wore golden armor and held a variety of weapons, all polished and glistening in the false dungeon sun.

But what shocked him the most weren\'t the lines of mighty soldiers—it was the leader of the wave.

A giant of a man was mounted on a huge armored horse. Both were clad in gold and silver, with the horseman holding a halberd of red metal.

The commander was at the third star. But something was wrong.

A miasma coiled around the man\'s weapon like a snake, and the more experienced delvers immediately panicked.

"The general is a deviant!"