Chapter 4380: Blood Strings Note: Two Chapters; I had forgotten to post the Chapter in the draft yesterday, and ended up posting the Chapter today, leaving the one from yesterday in the draft. Since I can not delete it or rearrange the order, I posted two at once. Mad is the first Chapter, and Blood Strings is the second. Mad Finally, I reached close enough that I could see the battle, and it didn’t make me feel good. I saw Prime Wolfden facing off against a blond, horned man who appeared to be in his early thirties, with thin lines of blood-red surrounding him. It is sucking off the blood off the Prime Wolfden and forming a new strings. The man is holding a sabre and attacking Prime Wolfden hard. He had already had tens of cuts on his body, and from them, drops of blood were coming out and merging with the strings, forming more strings. Akar Haklin. It was the name of the man, and all the information about him appeared before me. Hearing that, my expression turned back. He is one of the oldest, like the Prime Wolfden, and until two hundred years ago, he used to live in the village, until he snapped. It had become too much for him, and he crossed the forbidden line to get more power. So, he could get out of this realm. He is one of the few who have comprehended the two laws. Both of them are rare laws, and those strings are his art, through which he is siphoning the blood. He isn’t fighting the battle, but practicing the art. Forbidden Art, to be exact. Not all arts are good; some are bad and terrible. The one he practices is bad or neutral. I don’t know the name of it. So, I can’t really say it. There are some good arts that use blood, but they can also be used for bad purposes. Some have safeguards against it, while some don’t. "Akar, you have really gone mad; you are not the person that I used to call my friend," said Prime Wolfden. To which, the man shook, his head while smiling gently. "I am the same man as before. The only thing that changed is my understanding." "I have come to realise that we can not leave this place unless we become powerful. Prime is not enough, Silver Prime is necessary." "My art will help me become a true Silver Prime, and then getting out of this place would not be a problem," he replied, maintaining the same gentle smile, before attacking once more. "You are willing to kill your friends for that?" asked Prime Wolfden as he defended against the attack. "Yes," he replied calmly. The man’s eyes are calm, but madness is filled within them. "You are mad," said Prime Wolfden, recognising it. To that, the other man smiled. "Call me whatever you want, old friend, but I will not stop," "You should be grateful instead and not resist, as when I got out. Your essence will get out of this realm with me," he replied and launched another attack. I have seen mad people, but he is worse than all of them. He believes every word he is saying. That he is doing nothing wrong. It really shook me; the time in the realm had made him mad, and the thing is, he isn’t the only one here. There are many across the realm and a few in the village. Though those people are taking the treatment to control their madness, while these have become unhinged. A moment later, I got control over my emotions and looked at the battle rationally. Prime Wolfden is in trouble; the drops coming out of it aren’t simple blood. It contains his essence, which means every drop of it is weakening him. The only reason he is fighting is because of his law, but the extraction of essence will also affect that. If this continued, he wouldn’t be able to last for long. I shouldn’t interfere; the man is stronger than I am. Most importantly, I can not let him have even a drop of my blood. Given his law and art, he won’t have a problem understanding its value. Once he knows, he will want it at any cost. Even if I am able to survive, it won’t be long before I am in trouble. I understand very well how quickly such news spreads. Once it did, everyone would be after me, the Prime of the village, and the beasts of the forest. Still, the very next moment, my body moved, and he sensed it immediately, since I turned my stealth off. He stopped mid-attack and turned to me. There was a surprise in his eyes, but a moment later, a smile appeared on his face. "You must be a new friend. I haven’t heard about you," he said, before casting a glance at the runes floating around me as I looked at the blood strings. "Yes, I am. Arrived just a few months ago," I replied as I stopped beside Prime Wolfden. "You shouldn’t have come, Prime Arys," said Priem Wolfden. "Leave now, I will keep him occupied," he added, appearing in front of me. "Unfortunately, that’s not an option anymore. Since you have come, you will stay," said Haklin. "Relax, Prime Wolfden; he isn’t strong enough to do anything to me," I replied and turned to the man. "Prime Haklin, I would be grateful. If you let us leave," I said, but the man shook his head. "That’s not an option, Prime Arys. Especially now, when I am sensing, desire from my art for your blood," he replied, and I sighed. "Well, that’s your choice," I replied, before placing my hand against Prime Wolfden’s shoulder. The next moment, runes came out. Ancient runes began to spread across his body. He didn’t resist, while a frown appeared on Haklin’s face, and he moved to attack. "Prime Arys!" Prime Wolfden said in alarm and was about to move to defend, but I stopped him. "No need," I said, and looked at the blade coming toward us. CLANNNG! It reached us instantly and was about to strike, when a beautiful round shield appeared in front of us, and the attack clashed against it. It was a powerful clash that sent a crushing shockwave out, but to the shock of the man, only a ripple moved across the shield. Not even crack. ... Blood Strings Saying he was shocked would be an understatement. He isn’t the only one; even the Prime Wolfden looked shocked. It took him a few seconds to come to himself before turning to me. Gone is the smile on his face. Now, there is only anger, and the madness remains in them. "You have a nice defence, Prime Arys," he praised. "Thank you, Prime Haklin," I replied, before turning to Prime Wolfden. The runes finished spreading over him, and I looked at them once over before activating the formation. Buzz! The formation was activated. As it did, Prime Haklin, who was coming to attack, suddenly stopped and vomited blood. "Bastard!" he cursed, leaving all the politeness. I grinned at that before two bottles with green and purple liquid appeared in my hand. "These won’t heal you fully, but it will stop the loss and begin the process of recovery," I said to him and handed him the bottle. The man had lost the essence; it’s not easy to recover it. "Thank you," he said before gulping them down, while I turned to the formation. The formation is complex and powerful, but its function is simple. It is an isolation formation, and its function is to isolate it from the method. The art is powerful, and the formation isn’t enough to break the hold of the powerful method, which is connected to him by blood and law. The formation has another use, I contain his soul sense and other senses. So, the moment I activated. The invisible string sphere appeared around us. It is what isolated the method and has caused the backlash. "I will kill you!" said Halkin as he recovered and came at me with another attack. This one had law power swirling around his saber, and I watched with interest. It is not every day that one comes across such amazing laws he has. The law of blood is one of the best laws out there and bears some similarities to killing. I need to understand this law as thoroughly as possible. Blood is one of the things that could reveal my identity. Understanding the law of blood could help me tremendously in avoiding that. I am interested in the law of absorption for entirely different reasons. It is a law nearly similar to swallowing; some people have advanced the Law of Absorption into the Law of Swallowing. It would help me a lot with comprehension if I were able to understand the deeper aspects of it. Bam! The attack clash and it didn’t make the defeating sound or create a massive shockwave, but it’s without a doubt, an attack more powerful than the last one. It is working differently than the previous offensive attack. This one is more sophisticated. He is employing the law of absorption to dismantle the structure of the shield; once that is done, the second layer of the attack destroys it. It is quite good, amazing even. It might have worked if it were against someone who hadn’t comprehended the Law of Swallowing and used that understanding in designing the shield. The attack didn’t even create a ripple, like the last one did. Much less cracks and explosions than he had been expecting. That made the man quite angry. "You will have to do much better than that, to break my shield, Prime Haklin," I taunted. "I will, Prime Arys," said the man through gritted teeth, and the next moment, he appeared behind me and launched the blazing attack. I saw his saber, burning with bloody flame, coming toward us. Wolfden looked at me worriedly, while I had a carefree smile on my face. He’s saber reached close and was about to move closer, when the shield suddenly appeared in front of it and stopped the attack. CLANNNG! It clashed hard, with energy, with laws entering inside my shield, but moved through the formation and got crushed by it. The man got angrier and appeared above us and attacked again, but my shield defended once more. My shields could move very fast; I had designed them in such a way, but they could move even faster in a sphere. "You are more powerful than I had thought, Prime Arys," said Prime Wolfden. To that, I smiled and shook my head. "I am not, Prime Wolfden. It’s just that my defence is extremely good," I replied. I could see the man has questions, but he kept them to themselves and looked at Prime Haklin, who is attacking us like crazy. Soon, a minute passed, and his attack had intensified instead of lessening. "Prime Haklin, give you. You are not powerful enough to break through my shield," I said to the man. To my surprise, he stopped and looked at me. The madness in his eyes receded with rationality taking its place, but it didn’t make me good at all. Instead, it raised all the hair on my body. The man is about to do something dangerous. Something that could kill me. Seeing that, the runes lit. "You have exceptional defence, I will give you that, but you are wrong about me not being able to break it," he replied, and blood strings revolving around it, turned to me. "I will break it and then I will have your blood," added the man, and his strings came at me. "Prime," said Prime Wolfden, scared and worried, but I smiled with my eyes not moving away from the strings. The strings didn’t come from one direction, but from all of them, and they are very fast. So, they arrived instantly. BAMMMM BAMMMM BAMMMM! The deafening sound rang out as the strings clashed and the sphere became visible. I wanted to keep it invisible till I couldn’t, but things didn’t happen as one wishes. The strings clashed hard against the sphere, with such force. That sent huge ripples across it. It was powerful enough that it would have killed someone like Prime Wolfden in an instant. Hell, it would have broken through my shield if they had only been 10% stronger. This is an art, one of the weakest I had seen, but still an art, and makes it an extremely dangerous thing. The attack is two-layered, and the first layer is weakest. The second is the strongest. The strings melted into the energy and spread into the sphere. Immediately overwhelming the defences of the sphere. It made me scared, but I worked with my clone while keeping a smile on my face. The energy is pure essence filled with the power of art and laws. Making it extremely dangerous and if not for me dealing with powerful energies before, they would leaked through it already. Things aren’t safe right now. I am fighting with my clones right now to keep the energy contained, whittle it down, but it’s not easy. This is something that is very strong. Though they have met my shields today. I have encountered many powerful things, and today, I will tackle them and add them to my data collection, which I will use to improve my shields further. The data would be precious, but I need to be alive to study it. So, I gave everything I had to deal with it. Improved the formations in a corner of sphere, tested it against the energy. If it worked, then bringing changes into the rest of the formation. It is happening extremely fast, and I am thankful for the time dilation; without it, it wouldn’t have been possible. Time passed by, and finally, I had reached equilibrium with the deadly blood energy. This made me take a sigh of relief. I haven’t dealt with energy yet, but I have improved my defence enough that it won’t be able to harm me. That is enough to make me feel relieved.