All undead creatures I hit with my baseball bat went flying, but that wasn't the end of it as the black flaming aura infected them, burning them to ashes before they even hit the ground. 

Elemental aura was what I called this new technique I'm using right now. Its principles were straightforward in nature but complicated in application.

To use this new ability of mine, I had to change the properties of my aura to match those of fire, meaning that I had to have a deep understanding of fire, which wasn't overly complicated thanks to my Intuitive Aptitude.

And I have to say, even though the process of understanding fire was simple, it wasn't easy as I had to come in contact with actual fire for my perk to work, which, as you might have guessed, wasn't pleasant. 

But I endured the pain with gritted teeth, and it paid off in the end, giving me the ability to manifest my aura in the form of fire and use it directly or augment it into a weapon as I was doing now with my baseball bat.

But why is the aura black, despite matching the properties of fire, you might ask? Well, I had no idea, but my best guess was that Bloodsport's dread aura had somehow infected the fire, changing it in the process. 

And despite my best efforts, I couldn't understand the properties of this black fire, making this my first encounter with something that could be illogical or possibly too complicated for my mortal mind to understand, but I digress. 

Undead creatures kept charging towards me in the dozens, but I didn't care, simply charging towards the royal undead as I kept and killing everything in my way without even giving the damned things a chance to hit me. 

"There you are!" I said with a smile plastered on my face as I finally reached the royal undead, looking it dead in its glowing eye sockets, and it shrieked angrily in response, seemingly offended by my casual disregard. 

Shrieking wasn't the only thing it did as it took a rusted great sword from its back and charged towards me, making its intention to cleave me in half very apparent. 

I materialized several small knives I shaped using aura between the fingers of my free hand, promptly throwing them towards the royal undead, and it responded by blocking them with its great sword, sending them flying to the side. 

'This one seems to be even stronger than the special undead I met back then.' I frowned as I met a swing of the undead's great sword with a swing of my baseball bat, leaving us in a deadlock. 

The undead looked me in the eye as we pushed our weapons against each other and began speaking gibberish in a voice that sounded like chalk scraping against a board that I did not understand, but it was clearly trying to say something. 

"I don't know what the hell you're saying, buddy, but fuck you too," I said with a smile as I began channeling aura into my arm's muscles, pushing it back and causing it to stagger. 

I didn't let up as I took a step forward, swinging my baseball bat down at the undead's shoulder, infecting it with the black flame and causing it to shriek in pain, but it didn't let up either as it swung its great sword at me, forcing me to dodge backward.

The undead took advantage of the space it created for itself, hurriedly patting its shoulder in an attempt to put off the black flames, but things didn't go as planned. 

The black flames didn't go off as the royal undead wanted, but it spread to its hand and the rest of its body, causing it to shriek even more loudly as its movement began growing more and more sluggish by the second until it fell to the ground on its knees.

It turned to look at me with its eerie, glowing eye sockets as the fire quickly began eating through the undead's body, slowly but surely turning it into nothing but ash, muttering even more gibberish while pointing a bony finger at me. 

A black gaseous cloud of something shot out of the undead's finger and flew towards me, causing me to take a step to the side in an attempt to dodge whatever this thing was, but I wasn't fast enough. 

The black gas touched my arm and immediately disappeared, seemingly burrowing deep into my body. 'Well, shit.' I cursed as I immediately left the area, making my way towards a secluded location to see what I could do about this thing. 

...

"Well, that's new," Demira said with an amused smile after watching Kaden's fight against the royal undead through a bloody, red mirror seemingly made out of blood. 

"What type of power do you think he has?" Flatliner asked with a curious expression, cutely tilting her head to the side. "I haven't seen anything like it before, especially that black flame. It looked very..., sinister," Demira replied with a frown, trailing at the end of her sentence with a thoughtful expression. 

"That black flame only seemed to manifest on his baseball bat. Do you think it has something to do with it?" Flatliner commented with a frown of her own, trying to wrap her head around this strange power. 

"I've seen that thing absorb the blood of dead creatures, and it has a unique bloody aura to it, so it's a possibilité," Demira replied with an uncertain expression, showing her confusion. 

"It doesn't really matter," Flat liner said as her confused expression turned to a smile. "The guy might not lose that horribly to those two maniacs if he has this kind of power," she added while nodding her head in satisfaction, seemingly eager for the upcoming showdown. 

"The boy's chances of winning are a lot higher now, but anything could happen, considering the unpredictable nature of the two you've picked," Demira said with a shake of her head.  

"But that's hors du sujet (Irrelevant) right now. The boy still has a long way to go until then," Demira concluded with a shrug as the two of them resumed looking into the mirror.

...

'If I were the protagonist of a Chinese novel, then this situation would end in me sleeping with some jade beauty to cure myself of the poison.'

My cynical side went to work inside my head as I began scanning my body with aura in an attempt to locate and identify whatever that thing shot at me before it died.

'Too bad I'm not a Chinese novel protagonist, though. I could really use some action just about now if you know what I mean.' 

But alas, it seems that I'll have to do the things the old-fashioned way, and I did just that. 

'There you are, you nasty little thing.' I frowned as I finally located the black gas circling in my veins and heading straight towards my heart, causing me to encase it in my aura immediately and begin pushing it back.

I materialized a small aura knife and cut my left index finger with it as I began pushing the invading black gas towards it, frowning as the damned thing finally came out. 

I contained it inside a transparent ball of aura and held it in my hand, trying to wrap my head around what the hell this thing was, and I immediately felt a strange feeling of desire coming from my baseball bat. 

I hesitated for a second, but I finally brought Bloodsport closer to the aura ball containing the black gas, my eyes widening as the gas immediately shot towards my baseball bat, only lingering for a second on its surface before being absorbed. 

[You have several new notifications. Would you like to view them?]

'Yes.' I shrugged, immediately agreeing and hoping that the systems notifications would have some answers about what just happened.  

Most of the new notifications were about me killing the zombies, with the only one about killing the royal undead being interesting, as it mentions that it was, in fact, C- rated and not E- rated like the previous one. 

"I'll have to start checking my opponents' status screen before fighting them," I murmured to myself with a sigh as my eyes turned to the last notification. 

[Bloodsport (Discord) has absorbed the royal undead's blood essence. Dread aura has evolved.]

[Dreadful Aura: A corrosive Aura that harms the living while inflicting weaker undead with fear with a slight chance of inflicting obedience]

'Huh, neat.' So that black gaseous thing was the damned thing's blood essence, and my baseball bat absorbed it, gaining the ability to inflict obedience on weaker undead in the process?

'What does that even mean?' I shook my head as I got up, intending to resume my march towards the city's center. 'Whatever that means, I'll probably find out while fighting my way to undead king's place.' 

"And here we fucking go again!" I remarked with a grin as I walked exited the small demolished clothing store I was staying at, immediately spotting a dozen zombies that promptly began charging towards me.

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