Vampire's Blood Ascension-Chapter 37: Noon Scorpion

The day passed as Rudy trudged towards the next giant bone and climbed it.

Darkness once again engulfed the pale desert, turning it into the dark desert. The bones rattled, and the insect dreadborns came to life.

After resting for a couple of minutes, Rudy walked to the edge and looked toward the flickering light.

"It’s still there," he noted as he lowered his gaze to the ground, and added, "I cannot continue like this... they might be irregulars, so I have to absorb a hundred essence shards at least."

Making up his mind, he memorised the location of nearby scorpion and beetle dreadborns.

He descended the giant bone, then retrieved his long sword, and made his way towards the nearest dreadborn, which was also far from others.

A few minutes later, he stood meters away from a deviant demon scorpion and mumbled, "I have to be fast."

The scorpion had pale yellow chitin armor, its heavy body gleaming under the moonlight with an almost tar-like dark purple fluid dripping from its pale stinger.

With a deep breath, his eyes turned sharp, and with blood essence coursing through his body, he dashed towards the scorpion.

The scorpion immediately sensed him, and its stinger shot towards him.

’Shit!’ he cursed in his head as he jumped to the left and narrowly dodged the stinger.

Dark sand exploded and sizzled as it struck the ground, and the dark purple fluid fell onto it.

’That liquid is dangerous,’ Rudy thought to himself as he almost reached the scorpion.

At the same time, the scorpion turned towards him and swung its claws at him.

Rudy stepped to the side to dodge the first. The second snapped closed towards him, and he ducked; the claw went past his head, and he thrust his long, gleaming red sword at the claw’s joint.

Dark green blood poured out, and the scorpion hissed as it lifted its stinger and slammed it towards him.

Rudy stored his sword in the ring and rolled away.

The ground beside him exploded, and he grabbed one of the scorpions’ left legs, gritting his teeth and pulling it out with all of his strength while channeling essence into his arms.

It once again attacked him with its stinger, and he let go of the leg and jumped back. But it still grazed him.

"Fuck! Ugh!" The dark purple liquid instantly seeped into his body, his body began to go cold and hot, his vision spun, and the scorpion smashed its heavy claw into him like a bulldozer.

Breath left his body as he flew off his feet and struck the dark sand. Blood trailed as he rolled for a few meters before he came to a stop. He coughed out the sand and blood as he turned his body, the sky spun, and he stammered brokenly, "Damm...it..."

Even then, his hand was still gripping the hilt of his long sword.

The scorpion let out a low hiss as it crawled towards him with its stinger raised to end him.

"No... Not yet..." He mumbled weakly as the poison spread in his body and battered his insides, blood pooling around him.

The scorpion neared him.

"I would... not... die — not yet."

He took a deep breath with wide eyes, and his vision darkened as the scorpion’s shadow blocked the moonlight and its stinger shot towards him.

However, just as it was about to hit him, blood essence left his body.

The blood around him rippled and shot towards the incoming stinger.

But even then, it wasn’t strong enough to pierce its pale yellow chitin armor, and that wasn’t what Rudy was looking for either.

Just as the stinger neared him, more blood essence escaped his core, and the spikes of blood that were moving toward it began to harden into a gleaming red crystal — crimstone.

Rudy emptied his core as he solidified the blood spikes into crystal spikes that shone like rubies under moonlight, and the stinger struck them.

A few of the spikes exploded into red ruby dust drifting like blood sparkles, but the remaining impaled the stinger.

The scorpion let out a pained hiss, and Rudy forced himself to stand up.

His vision blurred and spun as he walked towards it, but it wasn’t the first for him. After escaping with Moon Weavers, he had begun to take doses of essence-enhanced drugs that kept him free of agony in return for some sanity.

"Do you... not have some strong stuff?" he muttered with a wide grin splitting his face.

It swung its claws at him, and he evaded them with rather unexpected ease.

Afterwards, he channeled his essence into his sword and swung it at its limbs.

The gleaming blade cut through them like a knife cut through butter, dark blood streamed out, and the scorpion lost its balance.

He walked over to it, climbed it, and plunged his sword at the back of its neck.

The deviant demon shook for a moment before its purple eyes went dark, and a soft voice drifted in his ear.

[You have slain a Deviant Demon: Noon Scorpion.]

[Your blood has grown pure.]

The poison died with it.

"I did it... I finally killed a deviant demon."

Rudy raised his gaze to the bright moon; the euphoric sensation of increasing strength, even if only a little, spread a grin across his face, and he mumbled, "Just you wait, I’ll end everything myself."

After reeling in this newfound joy for a few moments, he thrust his sword into the noon scorpion’s back as he began searching for its cores.

Even though he couldn’t absorb them, they were still valuable and could be used to gain others’ support or trust.

Ten minutes later, and after dismembering the whole of its body, Rudy found three gleaming white essence shards from its body and stored them in his spatial ring.

He took out a bottle, drank some water, and mumbled as he jumped down from its dissected body, "To the next one we go."

Yes, Crimson Saint was not yet done with putting himself into death’s maw.