Ellenâs voice, strangled and furious, cut through the panic. "Donât... stand there! Attack! Thatâs an orâUrk!"
Adam had heard enough. He tightened his coils just enough to cut off her air and her commands, applying a crushing pressure that made her armor creak in protest. He was carefulâterribly, precisely carefulânot to kill her. A dead hostage was useless. A living, suffering one was a perfect deterrent.
Seeing their commander silenced, one of the mages in the back began chanting, hands weaving a spell of binding light. Adamâs Hunterâs Tri-Sense screamed of impending entanglement. If that hit him, it was over.
He couldnât afford to be hit. With a pained jerk, he shifted his massive bulk, using Ellen as a shield to block the mageâs line of sight, disrupting the spell.
The momentary distraction gave him a crucial opening. His mind flew to his status panel. 4 unused Skill Points. A lifeline in the middle of a hurricane. He scrolled through the available skills, ignoring offensive and defensive options he couldnât power. Then he saw it, tucked under a subset of rare life-stealing abilities:
[ Skill: Crimson Siphon (Active) - Cost: 3 Skill Points ]
Drain the vital essence (blood, life-force) of a captured target to rapidly restore a portion of your own Health, Stamina, and Mana. Potency and speed of absorption scale with proximity, targetâs vitality, and skill level. Warning: Can be fatal to the target if overused.
It was perfect. It was exactly what he needed.
Without a second thought, Adam invested the points. Knowledge flooded himâthe instinct to locate major life-force vessels, to pierce and draw without killing immediately.
[ Skill Learned: Crimson Siphon ]
As the mage repositioned and the knights began to flank, Adam struck. He bent his head and sank his fangsânot his venomous ones, but specialized, needle-sharp fangs that now thrummed with the new skillâinto the gap between Ellenâs helmet and armored gorget, at the side of her neck.
A collective roar of horror went up from the soldiers. "ITâS EATING HER!"
"SHEâS DOWN! SAVE THE CAPTAIN, NOW!"
Ellenâs body went rigid, then began to convulse in his grip, a muffled scream of terror and agony trapped in her constricted chest.
Adam felt it immediately. A warm, potent river of vitalityârich with the enhanced energy of a high-level human warrior flowed into him. It was not just blood. It was life itself, converted by the skill into pure, restorative energy. The dark void of his mana core began to spark, a trickle becoming a stream. The fire in his wounds dampened slightly, the debilitating weakness receding just enough.
[ Crimson Siphon (Lvl 1) activated. ]
[ Health +5%. Mana +15%. Stamina +10%. ]
[ Target (Ellen) status: Critical (Life-force drained). ]
A knight, driven by panic and rage, broke formation and charged with a spear. Adam, his senses sharpening with the influx of stolen energy, didnât bother to dodge. He turned his head and fired a single, point-blank Ember Shard Shot. The superheated obsidian shard hit the knight square in the chest, punching through his armor and throwing him back with a sickening crunch.
The brief moment of violence was all Adam needed. With a powerful surge of his wingsânow fueled by stolen staminaâhe launched into the air, his Constrict never loosening around his now-limp human shield. As he ascended, he poured his newly stolen mana into Deep Camouflage once more. His form and Ellenâs shimmered and blended into the canyonâs palette, becoming a faint, ghostly smear in the air.
From below, the remaining soldiers stared, helpless and enraged, as their lieutenant was literally dragged into thin air by a monster that was supposed to be on deathâs door.
"ITâS GONE! IT TOOK THE CAPTAIN!"
The soldiers left behind dissolved into chaotic recrimination. "You let it get behind us!"
"Why wasnât the perimeter secured?!"
"If the Lieutenant dies, the Guild Master will have our heads!"
"Enough!" barked a grizzled sergeant, his face pale but stern. "Blaming each other wonât bring her back. Our mission is now a rescue. Focus! Track that thing! Move STUPID!"
The rebuke snapped them back into a semblance of order. With renewed, desperate urgency, they activated detection scrolls and tracking spells, their earlier confidence replaced by a cold, fearful determination.
High above, Adam flew, the stolen energy from Ellen a fading ember in his system. The Crimson Siphon had stabilized him, but the cost was evident.
The woman in his coils was deathly pale, her breathing shallow. She was his ticket through, a fragile, living key. âHold on, just a little longer,â he thought, not to her, but to the two pulsing sources of energy he could now feel ahead. âPlease be okay. Please be safe.â
As he rounded the final bend, his worst fear materialized. There, in the cleared area before the hidden alcove, was the other group. Derek, a mountain of a man with a glowing great axe, Tia with her sword drawn, and the mage Westin, his staff raised as he prepared a complex, unraveling spell aimed directly at Lilithâs silk cocoon. They were mere moments from interrupting the evolution.
Rage, white-hot and purer than any heâd felt, ignited in Adamâs core. He didnât think. He acted.
Releasing his Deep Camouflage, Adam dropped from the sky like a vengeful comet. He didnât land gently. He slammed into the ground between the humans and the alcove with earth-shaking force, sending cracks racing through the bone-white stone. The impact kicked up a cloud of dust and debris.
As the dust settled, he revealed himself in full, terrible glory. His Starlight Veil activated at maximum intensityâthe crystalline growths along his spine blazing with a light that was both beautiful and painfully blinding. Simultaneously, tendrils of his Venom of the Void, enhanced by the Pale Revenantâs fragments, seeped from his maw and wounds, creating a visible, shimmering miasma of neuro-toxic and necrotic energy that hissed where it touched the ground.
His single remaining horn gleamed, and his eyes burned with apocalyptic fury. The combined aura of Abyssal Majesty and his murderous intent pressed down on the humans like a physical weight, a wave of terror and psychic pressure meant to break wills.
Derekâs crimson eyes widened, first in surprise at the sudden appearance, then in cold shock as they landed on the limp, armored form constricted against the serpentâs chest. "Ellen..." he breathed, his grip tightening on his axe until the metal groaned. "I didnât think youâd be the one to fall."
Beside him, Westin staggered back a step, the complex spell on his staff fizzling out. The mageâs youthful face was contorted not just with fear, but with a deep, instinctual horror at the volatile, corrupting aura of the Void Venom and the blinding Starlight.
His analytical composure shattered. "Derek! Less talking!" he hissed, his voice trembling. "Stop its skills! That light is disrupting my focus, and that venomous aura... itâs degrading our magical defenses! Shut it down!"
Adam coiled tighter, lifting Ellenâs unconscious body like a gruesome standard. He stared down Derek, a low, continuous growl rumbling from his chest that vibrated through the stone.
The message was clear: Take one step toward my family, and yours dies first.