Desire: A LitRPG Adventure, page 22
A large crater formed in the ground as the skeleton’s bones cracked and fell apart! Ace looked around and tried to find the more elite monsters. His goal was to prevent them from killing more users!
The battle continued on as the number of monsters dwindled.
Chapter 45
Hundreds of thousands of corpses littered the battleground, the stench of the undead was strong. The ground was destroyed by magic and abilities, holes of various sizes could be seen. Users were on the ground gasping for breath, an hour had passed since the battle started. At first, everything was orderly. They charged in together and fought as one, but as the battle went on, they got separated. The battle quickly became chaotic. The casualties among the long ranged units were minimal. However, over a hundred melee users died to various monsters. Over a thousand had injuries and were currently being treated by the users who had healing abilities.
Vincent found Ace and landed next to him, his face was pale white. Operating so many spears at once took a toll on his mind. He looked around the battlefield as he spoke, “That went well.”
Ace clenched his teeth as he looked down at the corpse of a user, “Not well enough. We lost over a hundred people.”
“I haven’t been in war before,” Vincent thought aloud, “but that seems to be a pretty low number, all things considered.”
“Damn it!” Ace glared at Vincent, “I was the one who asked them to come!”
“Oh? Vincent raised an eyebrow as he looked down at the corpse of a user, “You blame yourself for their deaths?”
Ace didn’t respond as he grit his teeth. His nails dug into his palm as blood dripped down, landing on the ground. Vincent continued, “Shouldn’t you blame the user who sent the monsters here? And even then, they died protecting the east coast, they would be proud.”
“Even so…” Ace spoke quietly, almost whispering, “It’s my fault…”
Vincent tried to imagine how Ace felt. A few moments passed before he shook his head, unsuccessful. To him, everything seemed clear. He mused, “This must be the fundamental difference between us.”
Vincent spotted Elizabeth and walked up to her. Her head was lowered as her hair blocked her face. Vincent stood behind her as he said, “How do you feel?”
Suddenly, Elizabeth burst into laughter, “Hahahaha.”
She turned around, allowing Vincent to see her expression. Her eyes were red as tears fell down her cheeks, however, what was strange was that she was currently laughing. Her laughter stopped as she looked at her bloodsoaked dagger, “I feel alive.”
Vincent understood her completely as he said, “Good.”
She looked up at Vincent as she continued, “Ever since I saw my father eat my mother and sister alive, I haven’t felt anything except pain and regret. I thought, ‘Why didn’t he eat me too?’. I trained under you hoping to get revenge by slaughtering monsters, and well… I finally feel like I avenged my family a little…”
As Vincent and Elizabeth spoke, Troy walked up to Ace as he said, “We won, Ace. It was a complete victory.”
Ace sighed, his back slouching over, “Not exactly. We lost some people… I couldn’t protect them.”
“Hmm,” Troy looked down at the corpse Ace was staring at, “Don’t you just have to get stronger? That way you can save them next time.”
Troy’s simple mindedness stunned Ace. “Right,” He mused, “If I was as strong or stronger than Zepar, I would’ve been able to save more people.”
Ace had lost himself for a moment, but Troy reminded him of his goal. To help protect the most people, he had to become stronger, much stronger, so strong that he could protect anybody he wanted!
Ace gave a command to Allen through telepathy, “Collect the corpses of our fallen comrades. Give 5,000 points to their families, take it from the profit the territory generates.”
“Understood,” Allen responded.
Ace informed Anderson that they defeated the monster horde and successfully defended the east coast. He was stunned, “What? How did you do it?”
“I couldn’t have done it without the support of the residents that lived within my territory.”
Ace explained what happened. Anderson reported to General Tott, “Sir, the monster horde from the south has been defeated by Goliath and Demon, along with 20,000 of their residents.”
The group of officers were stunned. They released a sigh of relief as they discarded all of the plans they had come up with to defend the south. Thankfully, they no longer had to consider using nukes as that was always a last resort.
Now, all they had to do was evacuate the citizens that lived in Canada. At the same time, now that the dungeon core was destroyed, they only had to hunt down the remaining monsters. Thankfully, they lost their master and just wandered around aimlessly. It would take time to retake Canada, but it was now possible.
An officer spoke to General Tott, “Sir, how should we deal with General Hugh?”
“Deal with him?” General Tott grew angry once more just hearing his name, “How can we deal with him? He has the same manpower we do, in addition, we both have nukes. For now, just focus on setting up our defensive lines.”
“Understood.”
General Tott had an ambitious plan and it was only possible due to all of the soldiers underneath him contributing their points. He wanted to set up low tier territories around the entire east coast. That way, monsters would have to travel through them in order to get to the civilians in the middle. Of course, a lot of points would be needed, but it was already 30% complete.
Once that was done, he wouldn’t have to worry about the civilians as much. He could focus his attention on the training of his soldiers, and plans for the future.
General Tott’s thoughts turned to Goliath and Demon. They had performed tremendous deeds that deserved merit. He called an officer in charge of the development of the territories and ordered, “Give Goliath and Demon the territories adjacent to their territory. They’ve earned it.”
The officer was shocked, “Sir…”
“Just do it,” General Tott ordered.
Ace and Vincent were stunned when they received ownership of 4 mid tier territories from Anderson. He spoke as he handed them over, “General Tott expects great things from you two. Keep up the good work.”
The number of residents under them had just quadrupled! However, there were hardly any tattoo users in them. Ace sighed as he thought, “Good thing I can make clones. I need to train a lot of people.”
Of course, he never forced anyone to participate. However, now that the residents were given an opportunity to grow stronger and become a tattoo user, they put their heart and soul into training. They were especially motivated because of all of the recent monster attacks. A massive training operation went underway!
Time passed as tension between General Tott and General Hugh grew.
Chapter 46
It has now been 9 months since the tattoo first appeared. Vincent was currently sitting cross legged in the training room. He was deep in thought as he considered what ability he wanted to purchase. He knew that it had to synergize with his blood manipulation or it would be a waste. He had been going back and forth on what ability to choose since the battle against the monster horde a month ago.
He raised his arm and pushed a button on the hologram. He felt strength flow into him as he finally purchased an ability. It was,
(10,000,000) Low tier life force manipulation
Gain +30 to all stats. Life force is the building block behind all life. Gain the ability to sense, absorb, and manipulate life force.
A strange feeling filled Vincent, it was like a door opened up inside of him. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on the strange sensation. Suddenly, he could see a wide red river in front of him. Even though his eyes were closed, he could see a river! He flew above it, following the river down the passage. He turned left, right, up, and down. Ba-dum…. Ba-dum… BA-DUM….
A beating sound came from in front of him. He followed the passage and entered a large space. The walls convulsed around him. Suddenly, he became shocked, “This is my heart! Those passages must have been veins! That means the red river was blood!?”
He was thunderstruck. How did he appear inside of his veins? He eyes snapped open as he looked around. He was still in the same old training room. Confused, he focused his mind on his heart. He once again appeared inside with blood flowing around him. As he took a closer look at the blood, he noticed strange bright lights following along the blood. He instinctively knew what it was, “Life force!”
He reached out his hand and called it over to him. One of the lights left the blood and hovered in front of him. He felt refreshed as he held it in his hand, like he was being rejuvenated by the purest nectar in the world. He mused, “This reminds me of Qi, but it’s clearly different…”
He looked at his hands, “This must be some type of spirit body. Perhaps I can enter my body because I’m a living thing, and I can now control life force?”
He traveled through his body, sensing everything that was going on. After some time passed, he opened his eyes. He found multiple holograms hovering in front of him. They said,
Notice
Due to possessing high tier blood manipulation, your life force gauge and blood gauge have combined to form lifeblood essence.
Notice
Lifeblood essence is one of the strongest forms of essence, it represents vitality.
Notice
Due to combining blood manipulation and life force manipulation, you have gained an ability you would have otherwise gained at master tier blood manipulation.
Notice
You can recover from any wound, even death, as long as you have lifeblood essence.
“What!?” He expected different abilities to produce synergistic results, but for different abilities to combine? He didn’t expect that. This was a pleasant surprise, especially the new ability!
He exited the training room, appearing in the courtyard at the center of their Northrock territory. He closed his eyes as he sensed his surroundings. Bright dots of light appeared in his mind, some were bigger than others. He mused, “This must represent the life force of other people. Bigger ones must mean they’re stronger!”
He opened his eyes and held his hand in front of him, a drop of blood seeped out of his fingertip. It now appeared different than before. It was bright red and was glowing slightly, it appeared luminescent.
Due to Vincent’s high agility, he could see everything that his eyes saw with perfect clarity, even his peripheral vision. He spotted out of the corner of his eye that the grass at his feet were pointing at him. He became stunned, “What’s going on?”
He moved the hand that had a drop of lifeblood essence left and right as the grass followed the movement of his hand. He mused, “Is this because they are alive and desire my lifeblood essence?”
He flicked the drop of lifeblood essence to the ground as it burrowed into the dirt. Suddenly, the grass started to grow. 1 inch. 12 inches. 2 feet.
After a moment, the grass grew to a height of 4 feet tall! In addition, it appeared to be glowing slightly. Vincent had been shocked over and over today, and now he was shocked once more, “Holy shit…. No wonder it says I can recover from any wound, even death.”
Vincent focused his mind on the grass and sensed a small light next to him. He reached out with his mind and pulled it towards him. As he looked at the large grass, he saw motes of light exit it as it withered. The motes of light traveled towards him and entered his body as he reabsorbed the lifeblood essence.
Vincent immediately informed Ace of everything that just happened. Ace was shocked, “What?! Isn’t that a little too exaggerated?!”
“Haha, regret buying your new ability so soon?” Vincent joked.
“No way. I’m still trying to get the hang of it, it’s incredible delicate. However, I love the challenge!”
Vincent shivered as he recalled Ace’s new ability. He sparred multiple times against it and lost every time. It was definitely a bullshit ability!
Meanwhile, Ace was currently flying through the air. His brows were furrowed as he was concentrating on his body. His speed wasn’t nearly as fast as Vincent, but that was only because he was unfamiliar with his new ability. It was,
(10,000,000) Low tier Gravity manipulation
Gain +50 Strength, +25 Stamina, +25 Defence. Gain the ability to manipulate gravity freely. The amount of gravity you can manipulate is dependant on your strength. Manipulating gravity consumes your stamina.
When Ace sparred with Vincent, he created a gravity domain around him. When Vincent fought in close quarters combat, Ace constantly changed the gravity from high to low. This messed up Vincent’s control over his body and left him vulnerable to attacks. However, that was just a crude way of using gravity manipulation. That’s why Ace was trying to fly through the air. He made his body weightless and created a gravity node in a certain direction. This pulled him towards it, allowing him to fly. Last week he flew at a snail's pace, and now he was over 10x faster than before. He was improving quite quickly.
Ace suddenly received a telepathic communication from Alice, “Uhh… my parents are here…what do I do?”
“Eh?”
Chapter 47
Alice was currently standing in front of her house, it was located near the center of the territory. In front of her were a middle aged couple that wore luxurious clothes. Her father wore a top of the line watch that came from the most prestigious of brands. His shoes, hat, cane, all of his clothes were more expensive than a car. Her mother had jewellery on each finger, on her ears, and around her neck. The total price of all of her jewelry could buy a mansion. These two were the definition of rich.
Behind them stood a middle aged man in a trenchcoat, his features were masked by a hat. Alice looked at her parents, unsure of what to do. After all, she did kind of run away from home, “Mom, Dad, what are you doing here?”
“Hmph,” Her father snorted in disdain, “The military over in England can’t seem to keep the peace and quiet. We heard about this territory from some of our contacts and decided to move here. What was unexpected was as we were looking around, we spotted our daughter!”
“Ahh!” Her mother suddenly shrieked. She was looking at Alice’s outfit, “What on earth are you wearing, my dear? What is with that dirty robe? What is this, the medieval ages? Come now, mother has some clothes that you can wear.”
Her mother pushed her inside her own house as her father and the man in the trench coat followed along.
“Stop!” Alice stood still as she shouted. Her mother couldn’t compare with her strength and frowned, “What is it, dear?”
Alice looked at her father and mother. Why didn’t they ask? She summoned her resolve as she spoke, “Why aren’t you asking why I ran away? Aren’t you mad?”
“Oh that,” Her mother waved her hand. Her father spoke further, “Ahh, Alice. Did you really think we didn’t know you moved to America and started going to university there? Who do you think sent you that letter in the mail? We paid that school to accept you, silly girl.”
“What?!” Alice was floored. Suddenly, she chuckled to herself, “Of course… of course it was. This is exactly why I wanted to run away in the first place.”
Her mother was suddenly reminded of something at the word university, “I heard you were studying architecture to help those poor peasants in the third world? Come now dear, they are beneath you. They belong in a different world.”
Alice chuckled to herself, her parents weren’t even listening to her. This was one of the reasons why she wanted to leave. Another was how they treated others as dogshit just because they were rich. They lacked all forms of empathy, she couldn’t stand them!
Suddenly, Ace appeared in the doorway, “Are you okay, Alice?”
Alice’s face lit up, she was just about to speak but her Father spoke first, “Oh, where’d this ruffian come from? Please leave, this is private property.”
Ace snorted in disdain, “Private property? This is my home, I live here.”
“What?!” Alice’s mother shrieked in horror, “Alice, dear, you live with this man?”
“Right.” Alice felt glee at seeing her mother’s reaction, “This is my boyfriend, Ace. We’ve been dating for two years now.”
Her father frowned as he repeated himself, “Didn’t I say to leave?”
Ace took a step forward but was blocked by the man in a trenchcoat. His voice was low as he spoke to Ace, “Punk, he said to leave.”
