V quickly retreated from the canyons edge and ran over to Eika. She had more than a few minor wounds from the vermin, but the real concern was the large chunks of flesh that had been removed by the overextended jaw of the Champion of Vermin. He had a few medical supplies in his item storage from when they looted the slaver camp, but he would not be able to do much to actually aid her. The wounds were large, and wrapping a giant bite taken out of someone’s arm was not going to actually help very much. V struggled to think of a way he could stop Eika from bleeding out. He was not panicking per-say, he had watched many people die in-front of him, but this was the first time he ever really wanted to save them. In some ways, he hated that he had grown attached to Eika, and to a lesser extent, L and Luna. They now represented points of weakness that could be exploited against him. He foolishly tried to command an entire swarm with his ability with almost no preparation or forethought, just to save Eika from getting swarmed. If Luna had not dragged his passed out body into the barn, he would have gotten eaten by rats and other vermin before he re-awoke. As he looked at Eika's bleeding body, a strange growing disdain awoke within him. Why should he keep putting himself in danger for Eika? And for that matter, this whole northern journey was because of L. If it was not for her, he could spend this time trying to acquire more strength and power in order to win this wretched game.
V's ire continued to rise as he watched Eika's body heave with her labored breathing. Sure, they pretended to be his "trusted companions" but even his worst rivals in his old world showed him a smile and a gripped his hand in a friendly gesture when they needed something from him. V hated them, those people who betrayed him, those "friends" of his. A sneer crept across V's face as he stood up and looked at Eika's body in disgust.
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Mother's Hate has activated!
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V brandished his sword, ready to kill Eika. He then shook his head; it was too easy a death for her. He turned and began to walk away. She deserved to suffer for trying to use him, like all the other "friends" he once had. Bleeding to death alone was not punishment enough, but it would have to do. He had to find L before she recovered from her war against the vermin, she would be difficult to kill if she regenerated even a little bit. V wondered if he could use her slave status against her.
L had been struggling against the ever-increasing tide of small vermin assaulting her. She wondered if the ability she was hit with was creating animals out of thin air to attack her, V claimed he saw animals running toward her, but how many vermin really live in the frozen north? Creating vermin was well within the abilities of a blessing, and she figured, possible with the correct class. Suddenly, the smell around her rapidly began to dissipate, and the tide of vermin began to slow, and eventually stop. L's chest heaved has she leaned on a nearby crag. She was fairly sure that most anyone else would have died three times over, but her regeneration ability worked extremely well on small wounds. The only threat she was faced with was the physical exhaustion element, she might not get sleepy any longer, but her body still seemed to have a limit to how long it could exert itself, as well as the sheer numbers of animals. As she rested for a brief second, her Blessing of the Lady Protector suddenly started blaring warning bells inside of her mind. The impulses her blessing sent were sometimes difficult to figure out. She believed that her blessing was trying to indicate that something was... trying to attack V's brain? Or.... no... it was not his brain that was in danger. L grunted and pushed herself back to a standing position, sheathing her weapon. Not his brain... She tried to figure out what her blessing was indicating as she started in the direction he and Luna had ran off. Not his brain... his spirit? Or rather, his soul? As L struggled to understand her blessing, she realized that it was indicating that his soul was being attacked, or at-least something bad was going on involving his soul, perhaps attacked was not the right feeling.
As V slowly stomped away from Eika's body, he tried to formulate a plan to kill L, should she be capable of resisting still. As his thoughts raced, intent on murder, a smaller, almost imperceptible feeling awoke in his heart. Why... exactly was he killing them again? Because they will betray him of course! He paused for a moment and tilted his head. This whole plan of action seemed ill advised. Even if he wanted to get rid of them, why was he killing them? He could simply sell Eika, and make some money off of her, and L was actually not even capable of betraying him from a "game" standpoint. He had never really tried to giver her orders, save when she was under the curse of violence that single time, he could probably just order her around.... It made no sense to kill them. It was a waste of resources. As V thought about it, the whole plan seemed more and more absurd.
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Actually, didn't he just recently come to realize that he could trust Eika? Why... why was he so angry a moment ago? V's thoughts were muddled and confused. He vaguely remembered staring at Eika's body... and then his blessing did... something. It... activated the same way as when Eika died in the town square. He tried to remember what it said exactly, but no matter how hard he tried, he could only remember that it had activated. A blank status window was also fading from his vision. V shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He was supposed to be doing something.... trying to fix... something...
L slapped V across the face. Hard. "Are you brain dead!" L loudly spoke as V's eyes refocused on the world around him. "W...what? No, I’m... fine." V looked around; he was a few yards away from Eika's body. His sword had fallen out of his hand, and as far as he could tell, he was just standing there slack jawed for... some period of time. As his eyes crossed over Eika, his brain jumped back into action. "Ah! We have to help her somehow." L shrugged "Even from a few feet away I can tell she is not going to survive those wounds. Even if we did not give the rest of those healing potions we looted from the slavers to the slave women, they would not be strong enough to save her." V walked over to Eika and placed his hand on her head. His blessing had done... something to him, and now it was silent? V grew angry. "Screw this. Screw you." He swore at the Mother Goddess. What good had she been? A meaningless Class and a defective Blessing. The blessing was supposed to be "his" but it never behaved, and apparently it even caused him to lose his good sense whenever it wanted. V focused on his blessing. It would activate and help save Eika. He would force it to! V pushed against the blessing in his own mind. Willing it to activate, yet still it lay silent. "I hate you. I hate this game. I hate my life! Both of them!" V screamed in anger. Nothing ever worked out for him. V threw his will at his blessing, like a battering ram at a castle gate. "Do something you bastard." V had simply hit the boiling point. The constant threat of being in the God's game, the pain of all the physical damage he had taken, or experiments he had suffered at E's hands, the internal struggle against his desire to inflict pain on those around him, at odds with his desire for a more normal life. With Eika dying in-front of him, and the wild Luna possibly being killed by the Vermin Champion in the canyon, he could not control his feelings any longer. Tears of anger, and sadness, and hate slowly leaked from his eyes. He grit his teeth and threw himself against his blessing again.
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Mother's Sacrifice has activated!
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The next thing V knew was pain, followed quickly by his body going into shock, and then blacking out. He was unsure how long he was unconscious, could have been seconds, could have been years. However, the first thing he heard was Eika and L talking. "He is not going to be able to climb down even if he wakes up. If we want to go look for Luna, we might have to go alone. We are going to search for her right?" V heard L respond. "Probably, although we will need to make sure Luna is actually in the canyon, hopefully V can tell us when he wakes up. Just because I did not find any bodies nearby does not mean anything. I feel the need to remind you that eating dead bodies seems to be a central feature of the Champion of Vermin's powers. V groaned; his body was in extreme pain. "What happened?" Eika rushed over as V struggled to open his eyes. By the look of Eika's face, she had been crying. "I thought you were going to die! But you saved me and L said you would survive but I did not believe her at first and I was upset because you killed yourself to save me but you’re not dead and I’m so thankful." Zero percent of Eika's words reached V's sluggish brain as he blankly stared at her face. L walked over "Give him a little space Eika." Nodding, Eika moved out of V's current range of vision. L came close and spoke, slowly. "The short version is that you started screaming and cursing. After a few moments of that, you uh. Well, I guess the best way to explain it is that you took all of Eika's wounds. I assume the multiple open holes in your body caused your blood pressure to drop and you to pass out. Luckily, you are much much heartier than Eika, and you had the benefit of not laying there bleeding for a while already, we sort of just... took a bunch of cloth and bandages and did our best to stop you from bleeding. It’s been something like fourteen hours. Eika recovered quickly after her wounds were gone. I was worried when you did not wake up, I thought perhaps Eika might have had internal injuries that I lack the ability to diagnose, and you were dying to them. However, you kept breathing so I figured that perhaps it was a side effect of your... what I was assume, blessing."
V nodded, only just barely able to follow her words. "I... might have also somehow swapped her blood loss. If she... woke up quickly. My body is way bigger than hers...so I guess I would survive losing the same volume that she lost..." V decided he would try to figure that out another time, thinking about if he actually swapped blood, or if he simply lost blood, and she gained blood, was a problem from when he could actually concentrate on what was going on. "I don't think I can stand up. Luna is in the canyon with the Champion, he flew down. Sort of. Luna was... different. Something was wrong with her." Eika was worriedly muttering to herself "Different?! Oh no! I hope she ran away from the Champion!!" L looked over to the canyon. "I would like to stay and make sure you are not eaten by anything; however, do you want us to go find her, or more likely, what is left of her?" V weakly nodded. "Ya we can't abandon her. However, don't... fight the Champion if you find him. I don't think we have the right tools to defeat him. We have no way to stop his resurrection."
