From Ace’s skin shot out thousands of blood drops moving at incredible speed. The blood drops tore through the leg muscles of the zombies, causing them to trample over and fall. While their legs regenerated, Ace and Cherry quickly got back on their feet with their backs pressed against each other.
"These things don’t have enough blood for us to use. We’ll have to wait for the beasts to arrive," Ace said. "Focus on improving your blood skills. Remember what I said, Cherry. Over reliance on that form will turn you into a blood addict."
"Yeah, yeah. I know." Cherry answered. "What about your friend, Sky? She’s all alone. They could go for her."
"She can handle herself, trust me."
Focusing on his newfound strength, Ace closed his eyes for a moment while folding and easing his fists repeatedly. Cherry, who found the action weird, decided to play along since her brother knew more about blood mutant skills.
"Whatever it is you’re doing, you better make it quick. These things are starting to get up again," Cherry said while remembering a certain skill she had used on this very ship a couple of years ago.
Her veins bulged and popped with great volumes of blood dropping to the floor. However, as the blood got to the ground, it turned into a solid structure that took the humanoid shape. "It worked!" she cheered, having expected it to fail. "You’re not the only one with special moves, Ace. Meet my blood clone."
A spitting image of Cherry, made from blood, stood before her with its attention focused on the red zombies that were nearly complete with their healing. Cherry began to control the clone with her hands and made it kill the creatures, one by one. Meanwhile, Ace still remained standing still with his hands folding and opening up repeatedly.
"The symbiotes. Use the symbiotes," he whispered to himself, while following the instructions his system was giving him the whole time.
[New Skill Acquired: Blood Control.]
[Unlike your other skills, the blood bend skill allows you to control the blood inside of your opponent, bending them to your will. This skill, however, requires complete concentration and takes five energy points for every thirty seconds used.]
[Blood Control Skill: Activated.]
With his eyes glowing a violent yellow-red color, Ace focused his attention on two of the red zombies standing before him. He tensed the muscles in his forearms and slowly controlled the blood in their bodies, bending them to his will just as the system said.
The creatures, at first, growled viciously at the man who was keeping them in place. However, as soon as Ace arched his fingers, their growls turned into shrivels and squeals of pain, followed by their bodies being lifted into the air. Ace folded his fists and forced all the blood in the creatures to collect in one place.
He then caused the blood to erupt through their bodies and killed them on the spot, leaving only two small floating balls of blood. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⟡𝕗𝗂𝗋𝖾⟡𝕟𝕖𝕥
Pleased with the success of the skill, Ace used the same skill on six other creatures and managed to extract a good amount of blood from them. "Transform, NOW!!" he shouted while seeing the beasts running through the buildings.
[Transformation; Activated.]
With a symbiote inside of him, Ace’s transformation changed from his veins popping to his skin dripping with blood as if it were sweat. The transformation was complete, and Ace turned all the blood he collected into extremely long sickles.
Only by swinging his hands, Ace controlled the sickle blades and used them to cut the heads off the red men standing before him while his sister transformed and handled those in front of her.
[10 EXP for each creature killed.]
With all the red zombies thrown at them handled, Ace and Cherry stood still, with Skyler remaining at a safe distance with her hands transformed, anxiously waiting for the chance to obtain a new DNA type for her to use.
It being their first time, the Granians decided to only send three types of beasts. The first were panther-like creatures with four front legs and two hind legs, tails growing from both their ears, and mouths that split sideways, rather than up and down. The second were cow-like creatures with bone structures of ancient dinosaurs, their tails being spikes with bones. The third were shaped like ostriches that run on three legs and have arms which were as long as a man’s body. Their feathery bodies had two heads, with six eyes on each, and to make things more interesting for the blood mutants, all these creatures were of the advanced tier.
[For every beast killed, thirty experience points will be rewarded.]
"These aren’t going to be easy creatures to kill," Ace said to Cherry, having learned that the higher the EXP reward, the more challenging it was to get it. "Stay cautious, Cherry."
The panther beasts, being the smallest and fastest, were about sixteen in number and all moved in unison. As soon as they got closer to the blood mutants, they pointed their tails at them and shot a sticky, foul-smelling substance that bubbles. Luckily, neither of them were hit and instead retaliated by firing using their own tails.
"Come and get some, you beasts," Cherry shrilled while extending her tail and grabbing a panther beast by its neck. While wrapping her tail around it, she drew it closer to her body and dug her claws into its chest cavity, slowly killing and making an example out of the beast.
The remaining fifteen were frightened and thought of running back, only to be stopped by Ace who was using his new blood control skill. Controlling three at once, Ace slammed their skulls into each other and busted their heads out before draining them of all the blood they had.
Using the blood from the previously killed beasts, Ace absorbed it and made larger, thicker, and stronger tendrils and ran after the beasts. He jabbed each one of them and threw their discarded bodies away while running straight for the ostrich-like beasts.
[Level 18: 420/460 >>>> Level 19: 380/470]
[+2 stat points earned.]