Vampire's Blood Ascension-Chapter 56: Diving In

The sound of shattering glass filled his mind, and the oasis began to change.

Its vivid grass turned rotten, the trees became crooked, and the fruits changed into a mass of red flesh.

Seeing the fruits, Rudy felt like vomiting, but he stopped the feeling within himself.

"What the hell is this place?" Rudy, now free of the hex, looked around with contempt and fury blazing in his red eyes.

Without wasting any moment, he mumbled, "Final Will."

×××××××

Name: Rudric Ironwell

Moniker: Crimson Saint

Path: [Blood]

Rank: [Deviant]

Attribute: [Scarlet Scion]

○ Grade: [Apex]

○ Description: [You are the last child of the Blood God]

Traits: [Divine Blooded], [Cold Headed], [Lesser Vampire], [Blood Expert]

Skills: [Scarlet Sight], [Blood Manipulation], [Crimstone Construct], [Blood Usurpation]

Artifacts: [Dark Spatial Ring #15692], [Haloband #17394738], [Night Earring]

Essence Shards: [150 / 1000]

×××××××

"It somehow stopped my cold-headed trait..." he whispered and glanced at the spring.

"You can shut up now!" he growled through gritted teeth as the voice continued in his head.

His brows knitted together as he shifted his gaze to Sera and mumbled under his breath, "What the fuck did she do to me?"

For now, he focused on the spring and dashed towards it.

Sera, who had just finished killing a dreadborn, saw him from the corner of her eyes and shouted, dumbfounded, "What are you doing?"

Rudy glanced at her and responded flatly, "I am freeing us from this."

Confused by his words, Sera tilted her head. "Free from what...?"

Seeing her like this, Rudy felt a knife twist in his gut. Seraphel was physically and mentally strong, yet seeing her fall so easily made him understand how dreadful the old realm could be.

"Focus," he muttered and jumped into the spring.

Sera’s eyes widened, and a horrified look appeared on her face. "Vlad!"

Her threads snapped forward to catch him; however, she was too late, Rudy had already sunk into the spring.

The cold water embraced him from all sides, and Sera’s muffled voice reached him as he held his breath and dived deeper.

’How deep is this...?’ he thought as he couldn’t even see the bottom.

’It is dangerous,’ he concluded, and his eyes began to glow.

He dived with [Scarlet Sight] active to make sure nothing went past him. While he was doing so, he also put on the artifact that he hadn’t been able to use till now.

Silver sparks appeared around his left ear and took the form of a long black earring that seemed to be carved out of the night sky.

Just as he wore the night earring, his essence began to regenerate faster because he had already reached the dark depths of the spring.

Though he still couldn’t see the floor he just moved his arms and legs to go deeper.

’I still can’t see anything,’ he mumbled inwardly. As a deviant and a vampire, he could hold his breath way more than any regular or deviant could, but he still had a limit of three hours.

Just as he was panicking, red, orange, and yellow lines with a dim white light at the bottom came into view.

’What are those?’ he wondered and narrowed his eyes. Much to his surprise, all of them were fish the size of an adult human’s hand, but that wasn’t the issue; each one of them was a deviant beast.

His expression turned horrified, and his limbs slowed down as he counted them. ’Ninety-six...’

He stopped and muttered in his head. ’Dammit! There are too many of them. What do I do?’

A minute later, he squinted his eyes, and essence coursed through his body as he dived.

He zipped towards the light at the center, and the dreadborn fishes finally noticed him.

All ninety-six of them turned to him, their ravenous purple eyes glowed with unending hunger, and they swam towards him.

Rudy used more of his essence to speed up, but his body was too big to outmaneuver the dreadborns built for the water.

Rudy gritted his teeth as they reached him, their jaws snapped open, and their sharp teeth ripped his skin and flesh as they relentlessly gnawed at him.

The water turned cloudy red, and his eyes turned bloodshot as he felt like he had been thrown into a human grinder.

With the last bit of his sanity, he dived, but the fish were unwavering in their pursuit.

They tore his flesh and dug their teeth into his bones. Blood essence slowly healed his wounds, just for him to go through the same cycle again.

The water around him turned red, and due to heavy blood loss, his pale body turned even paler, but that’s what he wanted from the beginning.

A broken smile split through the pain, and all of a sudden, the blood mixed into the water began to swirl around him like a chakram, and the dreadborn fishes, whose bodies weren’t suited for such, were diced to pieces.

Their muffled cries reached him like a melodious song, and Final Will spoke to him.

[You have slain a Deviant Beast: Ravenous Piranha.]

[Your blood has grown pure.]

[You have slain a Deviant Beast: Ravenous Piranha.]

[Your blood has grown pure.]

[You have slain a Deviant Beast: Ravenous Piranha.]

[Your blood has grown pure.]

Hearing those words, Rudy wanted to burst into a maddening laughter, but as he was too deep in the water, he preferred his life over celebration.

Even though the blood around him was cutting through all of them like a knife cutting through butter, none of them ran away from him; instead, they began to eat the diced flesh of their own kind before once again attacking him.

Final will and the three words filled his mind as he finally reached the cavity from which came the bright, white light.

The cavity was big enough for him to enter, so he did.

Once inside, he placed his arm before his eyes, and his gaze fell on a giant, open clam that held a pristine, glowing white pearl.

A giant gelatinous monster that resembled a jellyfish sat atop the pearl with its tentacles wrapped around it and the four purple cores floating within its head shed ominous purple light.

Rudy set foot onto the hard floor and stared forward with a dark expression. ’Deviant Horror...’