Blood Knife

Hazel looked Ethan in the eyes and had a slight smirk on her face, then spoke in a playful tone. "What did you say when you lowered your volume? I feel like you were insulting me in some way."

Ethan had a smirk on his face for a split second before it switched to a face of surprise and he held his hands out in front of him and then waved them side to side. "Whaaat?! I would never do something like that!" His voice was clearly full of sarcasm.

The smirk returned to his face then he lowered his arms to his side and closed his eyes. Hazel puffed her cheeks and grabbed one of the empty water bottles next to her and chucked it at him, though even with his eyes closed, Ethan easily caught it.

He opened his eyes to see what he had caught, then placed the water bottle next to him and looked over at Hazel, seeing her pretending to be upset and causing him to let out a little laugh.

"You should know how good my senses are after I evolved, did you really think that throwing this at me would work in any way?"

Hazel turned to look at him and had a soft smile on her face now. "No I didn't think it would work, but I still wanted to try at least. Think of it as me testing out your capability still."

Ethan let out a little laugh after hearing that, however, his chest and throat began to burn. He closed his eyes and grabbed his chest, then took some deep breaths, but he soon reached his hand up because he sensed something else was being thrown at him.

He opened his eyes to see what it was, seeing that Hazel had thrown the drone at him this time. He then looked up at her and she spoke gently to him, despite the fact that his eyes were blood-red.

"You should go now. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell that you need blood based off of your actions, then there's the fact that your eyes are red right now too."

"Yea I guess you're right about that. I'll be back in a bit, don't miss me too much." Ethan let out another little laugh and then began to slowly sink into the shadows of the cave and just as he had sunk into the shadows completely, Hazel threw another water bottle at him.

~~~~

Ethan exited the shadows on another branch in the woods, though it was quite the distance from where he had killed the elk and boar. Like before the drone started to move in his hand and he let it go, then it began to float.

Ethan placed his hand against the trunk then crouched down and closed his eyes, focusing on his hearing and sense of smell to find his next prey. Conveniently it didn't take nearly as much time as it did the previous night.

After less than two minutes of searching Ethan had picked up the scent of blood, although he believed the blood belonged to a normal animal based on the minimal amount of Mana in its blood. He found it odder that he couldn't sense the presence of the Mana Beast who killed it.

He quickly began making the short distance to the location of the wounded animal and could see a pitch-black wolf eating a rabbit. The wolf's fur was odd, it was constantly fluctuating as if it was alive.

Ethan took a deep breath and put his hand above the shadows on the branch, then began to draw a bow and arrows from the shadows. However, the wolf quickly stopped eating its meal and looked up at Ethan, where both their violet eyes met.

The wolf backed up a bit and jumped up a small amount and while landing it looked like it was going to swan dive into the ground, but instead, it entered the shadow casted by the large tree. Ethan let out a small laugh and then began to talk to Hazel through the ring.

"You won't be able to follow me to this fight because it will be happening in the shadows below the world. Have the drone go back to you or leave it in this tree so I can grab it when I'm done. Take this time to start reading the book as well."

"Yea I get you, I'll leave the drone here."

Ethan jumped off of the branch and when he reached the ground he immediately sunk into the shadows. After that Hazel landed the drone onto the tree branch where it wouldn't fall off, then turned off her gaming console and grabbed the book.

~~~~

Ethan quickly sunk into the shadows and landed on what seemed to be solid ground throughout the endless void that was part of the shadow realms. He began to look around and couldn't see the wolf anywhere, however, he could sense the shadows being disturbed nearby.

He began to run at his full speed in that direction and after a minute he could see the wolf coming into view, however, as soon as he got around 25 meters away from it the wolf noticed Ethan and began running at a speed to match his.

Ethan gritted his teeth because he realized that the wolf wasn't moving at its full speed and Ethan's craving for blood was getting worse the longer he chased the wolf.

He was thinking of a way he could possibly attack it in the lower shadow realm, however, using the shadows was out of the question and he didn't want to use his new attributes for ice or fire. Then the only attribute he had left came to mind.

He looked down at his wrist and slit it open with his sharpened nails, then directed the blood out of it and shaped it into the form of a throwing knife. After enough blood to create the knife was taken out the wound healed.

Ethan then aimed the knife at the wolf and threw it.