He grabbed his throat with his good hand, but the agony rocked through his skull. His arms. His legs. His fucking hand, which had burned clear through to the muscle. Silver burns criss-crossed his arms where he'd blocked their specialized weapons, each wound a screaming reminder that his vampire healing couldn't easily repair damage inflicted by a common metal.
A bit of silver had caused all of this damage. It didn’t even seem possible, and yet everyone in his squad groaned in pain as they struggled to stand.
It was a lesson learned the hard way—one none of them would forget.
As his head swam in the foggy aftermath of the battle, the heady aroma of fresh blood saturated the forest. His fangs extended on their own, scraping against his lower lip as he fought the urge to drop to his knees and rip open the dead humans’ throats.
He resisted, namely because that was fucking gross.
Silence descended over the foggy battlefield. Ace surveyed the fallen hunters, their bodies sprawled across the forest floor like broken toys. These humans had nearly taken them out with nothing but metallurgical knowledge and well-crafted weapons.
Next time, they might not be so lucky.
Victor stalked over, blood dripping from a deep gash across his face that would undoubtedly scar, even with vampiric healing. His expression was unreadable, save for the glowering glare he shot at Ace.
Oh, great.
This would be fun.
"You should have followed my lead," Victor said, his voice cold as he wiped his blade clean with a ripped bit of the Forgeborn leader’s shirt. "Who’s showboating now, Blackwell?”
Ace tilted his head in silent admonishment, too tired for this bullshit. "And they would have killed the others while you played hero." He gestured toward Tara, still working to stabilize Rachel. "The team survived. That's what matters."
Victor's eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything else. Instead, he turned his back on the lot of them and headed for the Forgeborn leader’s corpse.
The fog slowly lifted as dawn approached, revealing the true extent of the carnage. Twenty-one dead humans. Six injured vampires. And somewhere in the forest, Ace suspected, more Forgeborn were sprinting back to report to a higher-up about their fallen unit.
They needed to move, but more than that, they needed to heal.
Too tired to say anything and in too much pain to resist what he knew he had to do, Ace knelt beside the nearest Forgeborn corpse. Careful to avoid the intricate silver patterns etched into the man's armor, he reached for the cadaver’s neck. His fingers pressed against the cooling flesh as he probed for the carotid artery. The scent of blood—rich, coppery, alive with adrenaline and fear—made his head swim.
Three days without feeding had pushed him to the edge, and now his body had only one directive: survive.
The hunger was a physical thing now. It clawed at his insides. It ached. It consumed him. It stirred the heady fog in his mind, blurring his thoughts together until they were just a jumbled mess, and he sank his teeth into the man’s throat.
The blood hit his tongue in a warm rush, and Ace closed his eyes against the wave of pure, animal satisfaction that followed.
Fear had a sickly sweet tang. Adrenaline carried a honeyed undertone. Beneath it all was the unmistakable flavor of humanity—complex, potent, addictive. The blood of monsters was sustenance, but human blood was life itself.
As he drank, the silver burns on his forearms began to slowly heal. Damaged tissue knit together. Charred skin flaked away as new cells formed. Fractured bones realigned with dull pops that should have been agonizing but instead felt like relief. His strength returned in waves, and the blood restored what the battle had taken.
"That's... efficient," Marcus commented from nearby.
Ace shot the man a sidelong glance. Their Mind Drinker stood over a nearby corpse with a look of disgust on his face. His eyes darted between the body and his own trembling hands. "Guess we're doing this now. Cool. Cool, cool, cool."
He knelt and mimicked Ace, wincing as his fangs broke skin. After the first swallow, however, his expression shifted from disgust to reluctant acceptance.
Tara knelt with the practiced efficiency of a paramedic looming over a fallen patient. She checked the pulse points, most likely out of habit—a gesture so human it made Ace's chest tighten—before positioning herself at the throat of a female Forgeborn soldier.
The others followed suit, one by one, and their wounded bodies healed as they drank. Silver burns gradually smoothed over, the dead tissue sloughing away like ash to reveal fresh skin beneath. The transformation was both beautiful and horrifying, their bodies reclaiming what the battle had taken with inhuman efficiency.
Rachel's puncture wounds from silver-tipped crossbow bolts pushed the foreign metal out of her body, small shards working their way to the surface before dropping to the forest floor with soft metallic plinks. The severe burns across Olivia’s shoulders reconstructed themselves layer by layer, the muscle fibers reknitting before new skin stretched over them like a living canvas. Tara's cheek, where a silver blade had cut a three-inch gash, knitted together in a mesmerizing dance of accelerated healing—first closing, then fading to pink, finally vanishing completely.
Marcus watched his own forearm in fascination as the blackened, blistered bark-like skin cracked and peeled away, revealing unblemished flesh with each swallow of blood.
“Oh, thank God,” he muttered as the bark of the Carnage Fiend faded from his forearms entirely.
“Oh, how fabulous!” the System’s voice echoed across the forest. Her giddy little claps followed, and she popped once more into existence overhead. “The humans made you pretty again, Marcus! My beautiful EXP Solutes system at work.”
Oh.
Right.
Each kill shaped what they became. Humans enhanced beauty. Vampires strengthened their connection to shadow magic. Monsters granted unique abilities but twisted the body’s appearance. Dragon shifters improved the Durability stat.
The System had designed this brutal ecosystem to incentivize murder.
Ace wiped his mouth with his sleeve, trying to ignore how natural the act of feeding had become. Three days ago, he would have vomited at the thought. Now it was just survival—like field rations
What disturbed him wasn't the act itself, but how quickly they'd all adapted. Their humanity was slipping away one compromise at a time, replaced by something more predatory, more efficient.
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They were becoming what they killed—in more ways than one.
“Everyone get your loot!” the System chirped happily. “You’ve earned it, my little monsters!”
Ace shot the little gremlin a sidelong glare, but he ultimately wiped the blood from his lips and reached down to touch the scout's corpse. The familiar translucent interface popped to life before his eyes, glowing pale blue against the forest's dim light. The now-familiar shared EXP alert flashed in front of him before yet another screen joined it.
———
Forgeborn Scout defeated!
Available loot:
- 15 Iron Chits
- Silver-Etched Dagger (Uncommon quality)
- Leather Pack (Common quality)
- Forgeborn Combat Harness (Rare quality)
———
His fingers swiped through the glowing display with practiced efficiency. The act of looting dead men had become routine—another survival skill acquired in this twisted world.
The Combat Harness caught his attention. Rare quality meant valuable enchantments or exceptional craftsmanship. He tapped the item, revealing its details:
—-----
Name: Forgeborn Tactical Combat Harness
- Item Quality: Rare
- Item Level: 4
- Armor Type: Chest/Back
- Durability: 100/100
BASE STATS:
- Vitality +20
- Dexterity +15
- Damage Reduction: 15% (impact)
Weight: 3.2 kg
Special Property: Metallurgic Compatibility - Specialized compartments can store up to 3 different metallurgic compounds that remain stable and accessible during combat. Each compound gains a 10% potency boost when deployed from the harness.
Unique Property: Adaptive Defense - After receiving 5 hits from the same damage type, the harness adapts its structure, increasing resistance to that damage type by 25% for 30 seconds. (Cooldown: 2 minutes)
Requirements:
- Level 4+
- Any Race
- Cannot be equipped with other Forgeborn defensive gear
Description: Oh, what a practical little contraption you've found! So utterly... functional. The Forgeborn do lack my flair for the dramatic, don't they?
This harness represents the peak of human metallurgical ingenuity - reinforced leather layered with an almost impossibly thin steel mesh weave that disperses impacts while maintaining complete freedom of movement. Those little pouches might seem decorative, but they're actually lined with specialized alloys that stabilize reactive compounds. Quite clever for mere mortals!
Notice those subtle runes etched into the buckles? They're not just for show. The entire harness is designed to "learn" from combat, subtly adjusting its structure against repeated attacks. The Forgeborn may be tediously pragmatic, but I must admit... watching them turn defense into a science has a certain charm. Just don't expect it to save you when something truly interesting decides to eat you!
—----
Useful. Practical. And, he noted, totally unnecessary and incompatible with his Thornplate armor.
Ace dismissed the interface and moved methodically to the next body. Corpse by corpse, he gathered his loot. A tedious process, perhaps, but a necessary one.
"Got anything good?" Marcus called out. "I found some weird vials. The labels are in some language I don't understand, but they're glowing, so that's probably important."
"Or deadly," Tara muttered, pocketing her own finds with clinical efficiency. "Don't open anything you can't identify."
Ace touched another body. Another loot screen. Another haul.
Body after body, screen after screen, he gathered the items he had earned through the battle. He moved through the grim harvest with as much detached precision as he could muster. The Iron Chits accumulated—curiously heavy for such small metal discs—and he couldn’t tell if they were just currency or if they doubled as crafting components.
Maybe both. Given how the silver had affected them, he couldn’t help but wonder what magic the other metals of this world could create.
The weapons he collected went into strategic locations. A silver-etched dagger in his left boot, carefully concealed in a sheath that protected him from its metal. Another blade tucked into his waistband at the small of his back.
In this world, when his Soul Meter bottomed out, the Duskblade would vanish, leaving him vulnerable. Physical weapons didn't disappear when he got tired.
"Holy shit," Victor's voice cut through the quiet efficiency of their looting. He held up an impressive sword.
The silver blade gleamed with otherworldly light, and Victor held the four-foot-long weapon as if it weighed nothing. Intricate runes pulsed along the hilt in an unknown language, while the upward-curved crossguard featured silver-infused bone. The midnight-black leather hilt absorbed shadow, contrasting with the brilliant blade, and a ruby pommel contained what looked like swirling darkness.
"It’s called Moonfall,” Victor said as his eyes scanned a blue screen that only he could read. "Epic quality. Specifically designed for hunting shadow-touched creatures." His eyes flickered toward Ace, and the man smirked. "Perfect for fighting anything connected to the Shadow Realm."
Oh, joy.
“Trade you,” Ace said with a grin as he lifted the Forgeborn Tactical Combat Harness in the air.
Victor’s smirk became a scowl, and Ace just laughed.
The team gathered in a small clearing among the fallen Forgeborn, each displaying their spoils like traders at a bizarre marketplace. Marcus knelt over a collection of throwing knives, their edges gleaming with specialized anti-vampire alloys. He tossed one in the air, and though he tried to catch it by the hilt, his hand nearly closed around its blade as it fell. He fumbled, and the dagger dove blade-first into the dirt.
“Smooth,” Ace said with a wry grin.
“Yeah, yeah,” Marcus said as he yanked the dagger from the ground. “We’re not all as badass as you.”
“Cue training montage,” Tara said under her breath.
Rachel had arranged her loot in perfect rows, her face a mask of intense concentration. Stacks of Iron Chits littered the ground in front of her, each in a perfect pile of ten. Weapons lay before her, lined up by size. Potions and reagents occupied their own grid, color-coded and labeled with torn scraps of fabric.
“You spent most of the fight under a net,” Marcus said with a frown. “How did you get so much loot?”
Rachel cast him a sidelong glare. “This is everything I have. All that I’ve gathered so far from the fights.”
“Ooh!” Tara pointed at some of the potions. “Can I have those? They’re registering as health potions.”
Rachel bit her lip reluctantly, but she ultimately nodded.
Marcus pulled a simple steel ring from his pocket. The metal caught the fading light, revealing subtle runes etched along its inner band.
"Check this out," he said, holding it up. "Gives plus ten to Strength. Not bad for killing some random scout." He slipped it onto his finger and frowned. "Kinda underwhelming. Thought I'd at least feel stronger. Doesn’t matter, I guess. It doesn't really suit my fighting style. I'm more about that mind magic and distance fighting."
“I wouldn’t mind that,” Ace said with a curt nod toward the ring.
Marcus nodded. “Sure, man. Want to trade for something? I'll take... I don't know, whatever you think is fair. Maybe one of those throwing knives?"
Ace tugged one of the small daggers from the sheath on his thigh and flipped it once in his palm. He offered it to Marcus. “Fair enough.”
“Tsk!” the System chided from overhead.
“What?” Ace asked flatly. “We can’t trade?”
“Of course you can, silly goose, but not like that,” she corrected with a wag of her little finger. “You need to formally trade through your interface.”
Ace frowned. “You just like to complicate things, don’t you?”
The System giggled and shrugged, her eyes closing tightly with a happy little smile. “Guilty.”
Crossing his arms, Ace raised one eyebrow expectantly and stared up at the smiling girl sitting on a tree branch high above. She leaned forward, clearly waiting for him to bombard her with questions.
“Alright, you little terror,” Ace said. “Explain.”
“Oh, gladly,” she said, her voice darkening as that wicked smile spread. “But you’re not going to like it, Sergeant. It’s going to hurt.”
Pain.
Of course.
After all, that was how this world of hers worked.
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