I Became A Bat

18: Twenty

A hammer probably hit my brain while I wasn't looking. Due to the nature of body, I'm unable to massage where it's aching so all I can do right now is to shake my head. My eyes narrows to adjust my vision which quality seems to have turned one degree lower. There's also my body which seems to have been run over by a truck or something.

Ugh! What happened to me? I remember fighting a monster and then winning. After that, I seemed to have blacked out. Was I too tired? I mean, have been crazily trying to increase my strength for the past few weeks.

I started walking, using my clawed feet to move like a human. Whenever I'm bored, I usually do this. It's also good since I think it helps in preventing me from turning into a complete monster especially with how crazy the days I spent my days in here.

Oh, what's this? I think I stepped on something. It's a puddle of sticky liquid. Blood? I move my head downwards to test the liquid and the smell of iron assaults my nose.

I look around me. While doing so, I feel my senses strengthening. Corpses of different sizes litters the field of this place. They seem to from three meter tall wolf type monsters. The largest is double the size of the normal ones.

A health bar appears right in front of me. It's mine. There's barely anything left. If I get hit by any normal attack, I'll probably die. Is that the reason why my body feels like it's about to collapse right now? What exactly happened here?

"Aruuuu!" The sound of the wolf resounds from the distance. It's from a wolf who seems to be still alive despite its horrifying injuries.

I quickly opened my mouth before I started casting a mana bullet in the air. In just about an instant though, I stopped it. The mana gathered is now dissipating into the air.

Since I'm too injured right now, I could use some healing. This guy came with perfect timing.

Mana around me started gathering at an incredible rate. It forms a cloud that shoots at the air with incredible speed. The cloud then wraps around the surprised wolf before the mana cloud turns into ropes that bound the poor creature. A pitiful whine escapes the wolf's mouth before it falls to the ground, unable to move.

With a single flap of my wings, I quickly took flight. I arrived a second later next to the fallen wolf. It's not even resisting. It seems that the mana ropes tied it up a bit too tight. It wasn't like this before. Did my Mana Affinity skill increase when I wasn't paying attention? I'll check it out later.

I used my claws to climb atop the wolf before I let myself fall backwards. The wolf is now emitting whines from its mouth and is trying to escape from the rope but the resistance shows no obvious effect.

Meanwhile, a comfortable feeling wraps my body. I can't help a moan from escaping my mouth. Each time my Vampiric Presence skill levels up, the pleasure of absorbing life from other creatures becomes more and more pleasurable. If it keeps going on like this, I'll probably get addicted. That's no good. Definitely not good!

The life absorption lasts only for a minute before the wolf dies. My health points is only back to about half of its maximum amount. It seems that I need to find more monsters.

"Aruuuu!" Another wolf's howling shakes the silence that permeates the area.

It's a wolf a head smaller than the large wolf that's already dead near me. It's fur is just like the others, brown with some parts black. They seemed to have adapted to match the color of the underground world as well as the dark lighting.

So, is this new wolf the mate of the fallen one over here? I wanna try fighting it.

A strange voice seems to be whispering something on my ear, urging me to fight. It sends shivers of excitement in my spine. I wanna fight. I wanna kill.

The both of us starts shooting each other waves of killing intent. A formless pressure forms at the area, blowing the dust on the ground. I know something's wrong with me. Although I gradually lost my fear of fighting after weeks of hunting monsters, there's no way I would actively fight a monster for the sake of pleasure.

As for the wolf monster, it's not as inhibited by its thoughts like me. After a great single leap, it lunges at me with fangs glistening with drool. I stood up and quickly flapped my wings to get away from the spot where I was lying.

I land on top of a huge rock that resembled a spear rising from the ground before I opened my mouth. Mana starts gathering at my mouth. Not long after, the mana bullet flies away with great speed at the wolf.

With reflexes that's even better than the cheetahs I've watched at the TV before, the wolf gracefully dodges the attack with a turn of its body. Only a graze that looked like a small red line was done by the full power attack. Nevertheless, it manages to disturb the wolf's focus.

The moment it flinched from the pain, I quickly start flapping. Waves of mana shoots out each time a flap is made. By the time they reach the wolf, they already thickened to the point of having enough blunt force to hurt a high level monster.

The wolf's health points is visibly being shaved off per wave. I can see this and obviously, the one being attacked is also aware of this. Now what are you gonna do this time?

Just as I was busy guessing its next move, it suddenly growls in a higher pitch than before. The moment it did so, green light appears and surrounds its body. It then lunges at me with great speed.

I'm currently perched atop a tall potruding rock but it easily reaches that place with an intense glare in its eyes. The way it moved was too fast that my eyes weren't able to capture its figure.

T-this is bad. I got to get away! The jaws are already nearing my head and I can now see the red fleshy walls of the wolf's mouth.

Despite all the thoughts of escape running through my head, my body moves to cast a shield of mana instead. Subconsciously, my mouth opens to create a huge bullet made of mana. It all happened too fast and in a split second, the mana bullet already entered the wolf's mouth.

An explosion occurs but the orb-like barrier made of mana manages to block its effects. The wolf's body is thrown away with great force, it's health quickly drops to zero. In fact, I can already tell it's definitely dead with how bad it's injuries are.

[Level Up! Level 19 to Level 20.]

[Level Up! Level 20 to Level 20.]

[Level Up! Level 20 to Level 20.]

Eh? Level twenty? My level's actually became so high! What's happening?

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]

Hey guys! I noticed some readers are confused by the last chapter. Why is the scene from the summoning suddenly shown without warning? What exactly happened?

The answer is: I don't really know what really happened. I just typed what came in my mind but because of that, I managed to come up with new ideas that I believe will deepen the plot's plotty flow. I never really would've noticed something was wrong if you didn't react in the comments. To be honest, my original intent was only to write a boring progression chapter with a short flashback at the beginning and it turned out to become like that. I really believe this is a blessing in disguise though.

Thanks for reading guys!