CH40

Spring 43, 11M 495Y

Cainite Territory 

Bavilim Outskirts 

The night was late, and the full moon had risen. Bat monsters fluttered off of trees like hawks were on their heels. All of them flew with the wind to the same destination they marched. With the flight of bats, Gabriel knew their element of surprise was lost, and the silencing enchantments on his armor became a waste of Westons.

He saw the first spire of the castle peek over the trees and felt the amulet beneath his armor grow warm. Anya was there; he knew it. Before the night was done, he would drive his sword up that vampire's poop chute. He clutched at the leather-wrapped handle of his weapon. Revenge would be his.

First Sergeant Prog let go of the wagon and drew his sidearm. The big barreled monstrosity was more akin to a siege weapon than a handgun. It could be used against the enemy, but that wasn't its primary use. Instead of drawing his sword, he raised his rifle and attached its bayonet. They grouped up into a tight formation, but no vampires came, so he looked up. Above the tree line, vampires with red eyes, beautiful faces, and better clothes than anything he had ever worn flew above them.

"12 o'clock tree line." Someone said.

Together, they fired, doing as they were trained, and focused fire on the weakest vampires. His system displayed their levels, making it easy to pick off the newly turned vampires with levels in their teens. Gabriel saw the monster still wearing that white fedora floating in range.

Clouse Vanraven lvl170 

Rank: 3 

Nosferatu: lvl20

Vampire lvl100 

Class: Courtier lvl50

Clouse had at least 500 attributes in either physical or mind. The levels were like nothing he had ever seen, what was a Nosferatu. Turned Humans retained the skills and attributes from their class and gained the monster characteristic to gain attributes through consuming humans and other monsters. Rank 2 was his original turning, and rank 3 was Nosferatu.

He fired and watched a screen of darkness swallow the light from the full moon and stop his bullet. Only a spark showed that Gabriel's round fired at all.

"That is against the rules of the game. We will retreat here; welcome to Castle Carmilla. Mother will be happy to take in so many young men." Clouse said.

Gabriel moved to chase but was stopped by a strong hand. Over the sound of cicadas, Prog chewed him out.

"Of all the stupid, irresponsible things to do, you wanted to challenge Clouse Vanraven of all vampires."

"I didn't take you for a coward, sir," Gabriel said.

The troll sucked in a breath, and his finger inched closer to his weapon's trigger. "If he had committed, he would have broken our line and freed his men to attack our supplies and bring prisoners back to their castle. If that happened, their numbers would increase."

"Then why don't we kill the female vampires? If they are dead, they can't turn more." Gabriel said.

"We have our orders; follow them, or I'll punish you for insubordination," Prog said.

Gabriel looked around and saw the veteran soldiers in their squad were ready to pin him down. If he couldn't even rely on his own squad mates, then he was alone against the troll. He did the only thing he could think of to de-escalate the situation. Gabriel saluted the First Sergeant.

"That's what I thought. We don't have the manpower to wipe them all out. Governor Charles doesn't have the funding to arm us well enough to handle this. He had a meeting with Carmilla, one of the rank 5 vampire queens, and made a pact with her. We only kill their boys; in exchange, they hold back and allow us to continue to live our day to day. All we have to do is thin out the number of male vampires and kill off the ones who don't follow the rules. We play this game not for some political reason; it's our survival." Other members of the squad were saluting the 1st Sergeant.

This had to be a joke. Bavilim had a population of 20 million living in the city and another 5 million in the suburbs around the city. Hundreds of thousands more people were spread in the rolling grassy hills around the city until they crossed state lines into Eden's rich farmlands, the breadbasket of Cainite, and some say all of Weston. The city, with towers stretching into the clouds stacked so high that people lived beneath the spires their entire lives without knowing the sun, had to play a game with monsters to survive. Where were the great armies? If every man was drafted and armed as Gabriel had been, they should have been able to wipe out this scourge in a day. He loved his Bavilim; fighting for it was a dream come true. How had it grown so weak? Did that mean there was no hope for his sister?

…

Day 22

Ping! 

Luminaria High Evolutionary (O) lvl1 

Rank: 4 

Description: The light of the purest psychic power flows through the user's mind, body, and spirit. Subconscious simulations are used to gauge the best use of skills and advance them with minimum repetition. Discovery will lead to the greatest skill advances and using those skills in trying environments grant bonus gains. 

My mind had cleared up so much that I started to remember important things, like my attribute fruit planting. They sprouted but hadn't done much more. I remember boxing them off from the rest of my farm and giving them a healthy watering. The soil around them should still be damp enough to keep the growing sapling alive. Mixing some battle chicken feces with some of the soil and spreading to would go a long way in helping it in its early stages of life.

I recalled some farmers went with Druid for their second class. Once completed, the next class should allow them to reach the equivalent of rank 4 at level 50. Most people were considered adults in society with attributes at rank 3 equivalent. A rare individual had attributes at rank 4, and it was almost unheard of for a human to have attributes near rank 5.

For the Eastern equivalent, rank 4 was the Nascent Soul realm, and a 5th rank equivalent would be Spirit Tilling. A holdover from the farmers that achieved this realm prepared the soul for seeking a Dao; the more furrows dug, the more Dao seeds could be planted. From what I understood, not many Easton cultivators reached that realm. It was maybe 1 in 100,000 cultivators, not counting the population used to support that class.

With that in mind, I was led to the fact I needed my own support structure if I wanted to explore the world. My farm would take that role, but it would also have many envious people coveting it. Defenses were needed along with deals with higher powers while we were weak.

The moment I became a tamer, even if that wasn't my class, I could contact my family again with their help and my status as one of the few farmers who made it in record time. I would be welcomed back into the fold with open arms. All the resources denied to me in the last 22 days would be awarded, and this place would become a new powerbase for the Walker family. My father might move some of Kaito's cute daughters to my farm for the fresh eggs alone.

I built my farm in the dangerous wilderness. Insane from monster skills, I slaughtered monsters, survived having my hands crushed and being left for dead, and my family would take that pride away from me.

My instinct was to continue struggling alone without a big name to protect me. Summer was still powerful even in our republic's 200th year of existence. Many remembered the time of our oligarchs and the divisions that made us weak. Our King, who was replaced by the grand champion, was exiled.

Even in the North near the Easton's the Summer Family name could protect me from a lot of trouble. I could make the betrayal of my mother pay something back.

3 quarters back to sane wasn't sane.

Knowing that and incorporating it into myself wasn't the same thing. The careful thing to do would be to contact my family and make use of their resources.

While we rested in an office, I began working on skill structures on whatever paper I found. Forming the patterns was becoming easier with every failure. It was something I was getting good at. Nana gave me looks and her lips twitched upward as if trying to hide a smile. My imagination, like my connection to my family, was too hopeful.

Skills were easier than family and forgiveness. I wanted to forgive my family, even my mother, for what happened. It was cold, but I missed our house, Kaito's family, and Mai. She was probably more brainwashed than Gwen had been.

I wanted the red-skinned girl that I made mudpies with and carried piggyback so she could pick the peaches too high for either of us to reach alone. I miss poking at her cute horns coming in and how she teased me about cutting myself from shaving.

Something approached, tearing my attention away from more important matters. "What should I do against this thing?" Nana asked.

I glanced up at a towering creature with a fox skull atop a feminine face. Long twisting tentacles slithered all over its body, and covering its torso was a collection of squelching openings hungry for anything. Fell energy oozed from its many pours filling the air with a mix of fell and something else mixed with the energy. It stood even in height with Nana, and when it moved, lights dimmed, and its tentacles glowed before cutting through everything around it.

"Betrayer, come face your doom. I will tear your flesh apart." I sliced off a tentacle that veered too close and watched its stump wiggle in the air before another grew from Ichi's body. "Wait your turn, Calamity. I must see justice done first," Ichi said.

"I've been patient, but I don't think you're taking this seriously." Small blades of fell flashed out, severing tentacles with my swings easily cutting through the creature's lower energy. Blood leached out from wounds and flowed into me. "It seems stronger blood equals better fuel for regeneration." I raised my hand and gripped it with what appeared to be telekinesis.

"What have you done this can't be right?"

"This might be hard to understand, but rank trumps type advantage or even immunity." I didn't add that my statement had many caveats. I made sure to use some psychic energy to really sell my act. "While I hold her, consume her body," I said.

"Are you sure? Ichi's tentacles are dangerous." Nana asked.

"Do it now," I said.

Most monsters she absorbed were less fresh, and I wanted to know if that had an effect. These monsters were experimented on to help them reach the highest peak possible at rank 2. While they weren't rank 3 their bodies and minds used their attributes more effectively than my own. Nana had strength and flexibility to the extreme. She was a mean fighting machine with Easton features. Her next rank was going to be incredible. Having a rank 3 on my team when we left for the qualifier in Bavilim was going to be fun.

My opponents would have to use rank 1 monsters against my own for the qualifier. We were going to sweep. I couldn't wait to see Nana's sturdy rear in action.

Reluctantly, the massive rank 2 raised her tail, revealing a snake-like mouth with two wide human-like tongues sticking out of it but no teeth. Fell energy leaked from it like a broken facet, and Nana looked so self-conscious of it. From this, she would grow a little stronger than before. I didn't know what the limit was in rank 2, but Nana was fast approaching it. Maybe there was no limit, and so long as the scientists could pop out guards, she could keep becoming a little stronger. Her body was massive to compensate for attributes that couldn't be increased anymore. Size and muscle mass seemed to be the workaround.

I watched her victim slide into place and remembered those times I watched my sister's naga swallow prey whole. They were much less self-conscious about it. I moved forward and ducked a sudden kick as Nana fled with her meal.

After a moment, she blinked and looked stunned. "Don't worry, I think it's an instinct. We'll train you not to be so guarded with your food. We can't have you hurting any of my villagers when they get too close." I said.

"How do you plan to train me?" Nana asked.

I waited for her to finish her meal and watched fell energy contained in a pattern slowly mixed with Nana's own, seamlessly adding to it. It was crazy. The sight alone freaked me out in ways I wasn't bothered with earlier. All the fearlessness I displayed earlier had been because I didn't have enough mental space to fear. It was terrifying to see something consume another being alive, but I let it happen out of curiosity.

My question was simple: would this make my monster stronger. I didn't think about the sight I would see, and I nearly slipped my control of the monster at an inopportune moment.

Then I watched in disturbed awe as a lump of monster almost as large as Nana dissolved while sliding up her tail, carried by numerous powerful muscles. My next thought was how well that tail could suck the thing between my legs. My cheeks burned in abject embarrassment at the thought of asking her to do that for me. I wanted to, and it terrified me in equal measure. I had the most confused boner of my life and didn't dare mention it.

Fortunately, my toga of curtains shielded my modesty.

Ping! 

Nana

Obedience 3 to 4: Obedience Equals good things. 

Affection 0 to 1 Reluctant Admiration 

"Will I also consume the Empress?"

Seeing her relationship data was a life hack I hadn't expected. When I had appreciated what, I had fallen to the wayside. Maybe it was when I added 4 monster skills to myself and lost the ability to think out the consequences. Then I kept drinking deeply of that poisoned well until I made a wise decision.

I had a sudden realization. Nana respected the insane monster I had been, the Calamity, not the human slowly regaining his mind. I had to be him, or she might think I'm getting soft or some other crap. The question was how he would have responded.

I thought about the most insane thing I could say to an alpha predator like her. "Only if you can make the kill before me. Do you have a grudge against your former leader? What did she do to piss off such a majestic creature like you?" I asked.

What was I saying?

Nana giggled. Something snapped, and I thought I might be going insane again. My foxy behemoth of a monster gave me a girlish giggle. I smiled, and she returned it, flashing rows of sharp needle-like teeth. It was like staring into the mouth of a woodchipper.

Maybe I needed to take in more skills and let myself go back into blessed insanity. Skills numbed my mind and turned me into a badass while their unoptimized formatting for humans. I wasn't fully sane, and my anxiety was through the roof.

She squatted, showing me a quick flash of the view between her legs, sending me deeper into a heart-fluttering spiral of want and affection. I was supposed to be the one seducing her; how was this fair?

Nana kissed me and pressed her massive, lovely breasts against my chest in every guy's monster girl dream come true. It was heaven, and when her arms wrapped around me, I kissed her. She was much larger than me, so my lips practically melted into hers, and it was so much better than I thought. Meat grinder teeth aside, her lips were welcoming, plush, and smooth. Her tail slipped around and pulled me tighter to her body.

"What would happen if I tried to kill you?" I looked up to see nothing.

"I would discipline you, and then we would be on our way," I said.

She giggled, and I had no idea what I was doing. "I worked as an accountant for my father before I was inducted. Money is what I'm best with, so if you could hook me up, I will do my best to make us rich." Nana said.

I rubbed her fox ears and sighed at those words. Even if being sane was scary maybe it was worth it if I got to be with monsters like Nana. I still had another skill to create and didn't know what would happen when it finished. We also had an empress to kill.