Creep clicked his tongue to get a precise supersonic picture of the short sword's position. Once achieved, he silently flew to it. Curious, he tapped its metallic body with his claw, producing a metallic ding.  Remembering the painful shrieks of his dead companion, he took a step back and prepared for any mishap. The object, however, remained lifeless. He stepped closer to it and almost clenched the pointy end of the sharp blade with his feet, but the blood-colored tip reminded him of the blades lethality. Remembering how the boy had handled the weapon, he moved to the blades handle and softly clenched his fingers around it. When nothing unwanted happened, he firmed his grip around the leather covered hilt.

Clenching hard, he tried to imitate the human and lift the sword, but his physical strength proved to be insufficient. Implying his understandings of flying, he started flapping his wings to see if he could lift the sword. He succeeded. His body rose with the sword tightly held by his feet, but the tip remained pointing toward the ground. He couldn’t continue flying for long, though.

With his pitiful strength and stamina, the effort drained him in seconds, and both of them fell. He quickly let the handle go, but one of his fingernails got caught in the design weaved on the leather wrap, plummeting him along to the ground.

He fell with a screech, creating a racket. The finger guard squished the tip of his caught finger, sending a throbbing pulse of pain coursing through his body.

[You have suffered a minor injury.]
[-3Hp]

He didn’t scream, but quickly flapped his wings and got away from the sword, keeping his eyes fixed on the object. Lost between the sensation, the burning feeling being transmitted by his finger and the message which told him the result, he remembered seeing such bright colored boxes floating above the human’s body when the bats were making artwork out of him.

Busy contemplating his next steps, he didn’t notice his companions looking at him. Most were annoyed; some simply went back to sleep, while others started clamoring. The adult bat, however, stared at him seriously.

This was the first time Creep had felt such lively sensation ever. It was a new experience for him. Wanting to feel the sensation again, he scratched himself with the sharp end of the blade. Blood instantly started trickling out of his feet. Another message rang in his mind.

[You have suffered a shallow laceration.]
[-1Hp]

The cut didn’t hurt like before, but the blood made him realize that the lively sensation wasn’t meant to be felt. It was instead a survival instinct- a warning. He had seen things bleed and they were all dead. He was right and the echoless noise intruding on his thoughts agreed to his speculations.

[Through pain comes knowledge.]
[Wisdom +1; Strength +1]

The message was short, but its appearance meant that he was correct. He had been awarded before for doing the right thing. He now had some experience to look back to in times of hesitation.

Creep wanted to wrestle with the sword some more, but his ears picked up the sound of a human walking into the chamber. Dropping the thought, he took flight toward his companions without looking back. How was he supposed to fight against a human when his strength wasn’t even enough to lift their tool?

Creep was wise for a bat. He was almost as intelligent as most normal humans. Therefore, he was able to learn flying on the flip. But the scale was balanced. While he excelled mentally, he lacked physical strength. No matter how elegant his flight was, he lacked speed. He wasn’t able to get back in time. So he had to change plans. Fortunately, there were many stalactites growing from the chamber's roof, and he was small enough to hide behind. The adult bat flapped his wings anxiously. It almost went to bring him back. But the human entered the chamber before it could.

This new intruder was two heads taller than his predecessor. A strong flame tracked in front of him, casting a long-solid shadow behind him. He wore torn clothes covered in dry-flaking mud. He held a bamboo spear with a sharpened stone tip in his left hand and a flaming torch in his left hand which scattered the darkness around him in seconds. He was vigilant, unlike the dead boy. Although he looked poor, he clearly had fought bats before and survived, to return. Speaking no words, without wasting time; he stopped near the entrance and raised the torch toward the roof.

He could hear the bats screeching further down the chamber. The flames had such an impact on them. However, he carefully screened every inch of the roof before taking a step forward. His carelessness had already gifted him a long scab on the left side of his face, disfiguring him. He had learned many things in the lair, but vigilance was a lesson he had paid a high price to learn.

The light from his torch soon reached the stalactite where Creep was hiding, but thanks to his ingenuity, his soundless breathing and his still figure, he survived. The flames left him behind in the shadows once again. They darted toward his companions and brought their terrified faces into light.

While the synthetic noise jargoned in his mind, telling him of another unlocked skill -Stealth, and a point in wisdom for thinking of using the stalactite for hiding, the human attacked the bats. He clearly knew what he was doing. The combination of torch and bamboo spear- he was equipped to hunt the bats.

“Ha-ha- such a simple life. Come on’ now! Stop moving around and let me stab ya’!”

The man seemed to not care about the cacophony or the bat's erratic movements. He stabbed at the bats five times; missed thrice, lacerated one, and managed to kill another. The flames kept the bats at bay and the spear displayed his experience. He was efficient, there’s that. But he was unlucky. He should have waited a few days. He thought he would be fine if he didn’t go deeper into the lair. The adults didn’t appear on the surface chambers after all. Well, he was wrong. The adult hadn’t left yet.

It was trying to distill the younglings with fear. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t step up to protect them. When a third of the younglings were wounded, it moved. The gust created from its wings forced the flames to cower. The humans groaned, his shadow danced behind him.

“Oh my lord- what is an adult doing here?” Goosebumps appeared on his arm holding the torch. He took a step back, and then another. In seconds he was only half way from the entrance. The adult screeched and so did the younglings behind him. The adult flapped his wings once and the resulting gust extinguished the flame. The human abandoned his spear and made a run for it. The spear he could create another, but life, he only had one. He knew the difference between a youngling and an adult bat. His throbbing scab made it impossible for him to forget.

The adult bat flew toward him. Although the paralyzing wave of sound was a very efficient way of killing humans, it also had its shortcomings. The adult used it, but it couldn’t paralyze the human. The human was out of its range. He looked at the entrance with a mixture of fear and glee.  A few more steps and he were out. Five steps, three steps, one step- the man saw the tunnel outside the chamber. Something hit him on the back. The pain arrived and disappeared. Another step, he was outside. He crashed face first into the floor. His head rolled among the cold water. When his rolling sight came to a stop, he saw pieces of his body lying inside the chamber with his blown open pupils. He died with a smile plastered on his face and a tear rolling down his eye.

The younglings stopped screaming with his death. Creep however looked curiously- first at the extinguished torch and then at the pieced body. He had no idea how the adult had done it. But the human was dead. And calm returned to the chamber.

Three days later, their numbers were back to ten. Bats kept dying to protect the lair and the adults kept bringing new forces whenever their numbers dropped to five or below. Creep was one of the four bats alive from the first generation, but he was the only one who hadn’t reached level five yet. At level five each youngling received bonus points in Constitution and one free skill. Two out of the three teen bats chose the paralyzing sound wave similar, but less intense than their adult supervisor; the last bat had chosen a skill called bash, allowing it to rush toward its target, clad in a silvery armor of light. Anyone struck was instantly stunned and injured.

This was the result of them surviving through ten humans, altogether. Creep was also doing fairly well in his own way, but the others didn’t have any hopes from him. He was level 3 now, just shy of reaching level four. Other than the levels, he had received a new skill called ‘Bite’. It was only at level 1, in comparison to level 4 of his companions- showing he hadn’t fought as much as the others had.

However, what he lacked in levels, he made up with his skills.

One of his newest skills ‘Stealth’ was sitting comfortably at level 5, giving him extra two points in intelligence, and now with the ability to hide objects he carried. Other than that, his ‘echolocation’ was at level 3, flying had also increased by a level, and computing was up a level. His sound sense had almost caught up with his stealth and was sitting at level 4.

Other than these he had received three points in wisdom, three in charm, and one in agility for ambushing a female: one point in wisdom for figuring out why the bats were scared of the fire, another point in wisdom and one in agility for ambushing a human female who was conjuring energy balls from the void and attacking the ceiling with them- even though she didn’t see anyone on the ceiling. He received the last point in wisdom when the adult bat supervising them saw the benefits of his stealthy methods and made it mandatory for his companions to hide behind the stalactites to ambush the humans, increasing his charm by three points.

His increasing stats unlocked new skill and new skills increased his stats even more. In this endless cycle Burst and Analyze became his new partners when intelligence reached fifty points, and agility climbed the steps to reach ten points.

[Skill: Burst unlocked]
[Requirement: AGI-10]
[Burst: Burst allows you to fly at 250% your agility spending all of your stamina. Stamina consumption decreases with proficiency.]
[Lv-1][Active][CONS+2/lv]

Although Creeps strength improved with every skill he unlocked, it was only after his intelligence reached 50 and his wisdom crossed the twenty point mark -equaling a human teenager- did he actively started seeking answers. His jumbled thoughts cleared, giving him direction. What did the noises mean? What were the skills? Why attracted the humans to their lair beside the useless experience hey earned for killing them? What did it mean to level up? And analyze helped him take a step forward to find answers.

 [Skill: Analyze unlocked.]
[Requirement: INT-50, Title- Emotionless.]
[Analyze: Helps you examine something in great detail to increase your understanding.]
[Lv-1][Passive][WIS+2/lv]

He had seen many humans arriving and disappearing into the ground. Even their clothiers and weapons had met the same ending. Thanks to the combined effect of his eidetic memory -allowing him to remember every sentence spoken by the humans with precision- his Computational skill -allowing him to speed up the process- and Analyze -giving him direction- he had managed to decipher a part of the rules which made the language.  

In the meantime, he found another weapon to play around with. It was a simple dagger, made of cold steel and hilted with animal bone. Everything was going great… he had learned skills, the younglings had grown into teens, though the adult was now gone, things were looking up pretty good, but then a group of three humans entered the chamber and plunged them into the darkest pits of hell.