1% Lifesteal

From the very moment he had stepped into the dungeon, he hadn't really spent any essence. He was fully topped up at exactly 199%. As it was, he was relying purely on his physical endurance to beat the second wave. Even that was more than enough.

Lucas cowered in the corner, curled up in a fetal position under the parapet with his hands covering his head.

He yelped as Freddy threw another tied-up man beside him. This was the fifth prisoner Freddy had taken.

Whoever had strangled the last member of the first wave had done so in a way that was quite difficult to spot. If it weren't for Freddy's exceptionally keen perception, he would have never noticed the relatively thin red line on the man's filthy neck.

Needless to say at that point, there was another person with them in the Fortress Dungeon. And given their actions, they weren't there to help out.

Freddy kept one eye open and listened closely to everything that was happening. There was a moment of respite as the charging men hesitated to keep climbing into the meat grinder, and Freddy used this opportunity to tie up the sixth prisoner, making absolutely sure that the third wave wouldn't be allowed to start.

Slowly but surely, the second wave was coming to an end. There were but a handful of men remaining, and they were no longer charging. They surrounded the tower Freddy had climbed upon and discussed how to attack. This was perfectly fine with Freddy. For all he cared, he hoped they never attacked at all, adding another layer of assurance that the third wave wouldn't arrive.

With the men pausing their attack, Freddy walked in a circle around the edge of the tower and carefully eyed every inch of the dungeon for signs of the hidden enemy.

He sensed nothing at all.

He was tempted to release Bloodshed and have it go check who was there, but he couldn't afford that risk.

Summoning Bloodshed through Blood Sacrifice was one thing. Even if it got destroyed, that was completely inconsequential.

But releasing Bloodshed from the shell was dangerous.

Spirits were not born equal in power. At all. The weakest spirits were only at the level of mid-tier two-stars, while the strongest could endanger even a peak three-star.

While Bloodshed was a very dangerous type of sentient ether construct, the unfortunate fact was that Freddy had taken it into his soul only briefly after it evolved into a spirit. Its combat power was above that of a regular peak two-star but definitely well below a competent three-star.

Given that Freddy didn't know who was in the dungeon with him, he was reluctant to send Bloodshed after them. While it was incredibly unlikely that this person was a three-star, there was always a chance that they could endanger or even destroy Bloodshed.

There was also a possibility that there was more than one person there with him.

Given the number of men he'd killed in the first two waves, he also had the choice of using Blood Sacrifice, but that would be almost pointless. The enemies he had slain were all mortals. Their blood essence was pathetically weak, and a Bloodshed summoned with so little power would only be able to fight at the level of a peak one-star. That would be nowhere near enough to reveal the hidden enemy.

This left Freddy in an awkward situation. All he could really do was wait for the dungeon run to be over.

But he felt that things wouldn't go so smoothly.

For a while, he simply walked in circles, keeping his guard up as he eyed every corner of the fortress for signs of movement.

Eventually, he felt that something was wrong, but he couldn't put a finger on it.

"The invaders!" he suddenly yelled as he listened in. They were completely quiet.

Freddy inched forward and peeked down the staircase. There was nobody inside the tower.

Suddenly, he heard a shout.

He whirled, only to spot a tentacle of darkness tightly wrapped around Lucas's throat. "Help… me…!" the boy barely eked out.

Without hesitation, Freddy leaped forward and grabbed the tentacle. It didn't take much strength to tear it apart and set Lucas free, but unfortunately, the attack had fulfilled its purpose. By the time he turned around, it was already too late.

There were a number of other tentacles, and they were in the middle of dragging the prisoners off the edge of the tower. He was far too slow to stop them.

"Son of a motherfucker!" Freddy shouted as he gritted his teeth.

Rumbling sounded in the distance, but Freddy ignored it as he looked all around the tower, only to find no signs of anyone present. There was definitely more than one person there, and given the dark-affinity abilities, they could only be members of the Umbra Clan.

Someone had put a bounty on my head, he realized. And Umbra had accepted the job.

Unhesitantly, he picked up Lucas and leaped off the tower down to the bailey, immediately running towards the exit. With a double-star Flowing Strike, he should be able to—

He froze as he spotted the portcullis. The two guards on the sides were both dead on the ground, and the exit was sealed with a barrier of pure darkness.

Freddy clenched his jaw. He had confidence in the power of his Flowing Strike, but he knew that it wouldn't be enough to break through that barrier. Attempting would only result in an unnecessary injury and a waste of essence.

A moment later, the sound of a massive boulder slamming into the walls sounded, with the crumbling of stone following it.

"So this is their plan…"

They had trapped him here and would force the next waves to spawn until he was exhausted. With his skill set, it would be difficult to force a group of professional assassins to reveal themselves. They would likely only come out when they felt confident in killing him.

"Freddy, what the hell is happening!?" Lucas shouted.

Freddy looked at the young man, frowning deeply as a profound anger flushed through his body. "I'm sorry, Lucas," he said. "I shouldn't have taken you here."

He should have been more careful. But it was too late for regrets now. Another boulder slammed into the wall. If the army was allowed to keep pushing, they would eventually break into the fortress. At that point, keeping Lucas safe would become impossible.

Enraged, Freddy rushed back to the tower. He picked up a large kite shield and gave it to Lucas. "You're gonna hide under this!"

Lucas grabbed it with trembling hands and quickly nodded.

He couldn't leave the boy alone. Thus, the two of them climbed up to the top of the tower together.

A moment later, a trebuchet launched a stone. It flew right at them. Without even using an ability, Freddy punched it into rock shards. A ballista bolt came at him next, and he dodged.

With a moment of focus, he extracted a blood-plated catapult stone from his storage ring.

He activated Hydraulic Flex and Accelerate Blood Projectile with both stars, throwing the stone with all he had. It flew in the direction of a catapult that was about to fire, but it missed.

This was exactly why he needed Hydraulic Throw. Hydraulic Flex added power, but it simply lacked the necessary precision to reliably throw stuff. With a groan, Freddy took out another projectile and repeated the same thing. This time, he struck, wrecking the catapult and making it unusable.

He kept going. There were only four pieces of siege equipment. With two more misses and three hits, Freddy took them out and prevented the army from breaking the walls down. Then he waited.

For the next half an hour, the incoming army slowly climbed up the walls and chased after Freddy. While the barbarians were willing to risk climbing up the side of the tower, these soldiers weren't willing to do that. That left Freddy dealing with a constant influx of soldiers trying to push up the stairs to the tower.

But rather than grind them to dust, Freddy did his best to block them, doing everything in his power to stop the wave from coming anywhere near the end. He also kept an eye out for any shadows that might try to take Lucas away, but nothing like that happened.

While the first two waves required no effort, this was different. The soldiers were well trained; keeping them at bay required a lot of effort and focus, and even the occasional ability. This was starting to put a bit of a strain on him. But it was far from enough to push him to exhaustion.

Eventually, Freddy finally convinced the soldiers that they wouldn't be making it through him, and they seemingly pulled back to form a plan of attack. This was great. If only—

Freddy's thoughts were suddenly interrupted as a blaring light shone from within the tower. He felt incredible danger and rushed to pick Lucas up and leap off the tower again.

The moment he jumped, the entire tower violently exploded, killing all the soldiers inside and pelting Freddy's back with large chunks of stone. He landed on the ground below and turned around, only to spot the last few soldiers getting strangled by tentacles of shadow. Whoever was doing this was hidden out of sight on the other side of the wall.

"Fuck!" he shouted.

Rumbling sounded in the distance again.

Freddy stood there, frozen. Moments passed, and not long after, a number of boulders landed on the castle walls. If this was allowed to keep going, they would be overrun soon.

He gritted his teeth, feeling like he was losing his mind. He would most likely be fine.

But Lucas definitely couldn't survive this.

As he felt the sound of marching soldiers get closer to the castle, he suddenly had a thought.

He pulled Lucas back into the tower standing at the center of the bailey and walked into the room where the exit was. Hiding Lucas behind his back, he conjured two javelins and waited. These motherfuckers wanted to push him to the brink? Let's see how well they could hide from both him and the approaching army of soldiers.

The sounds kept getting louder, and more and more projectiles landed on the walls. One of the towers before him finally couldn't hold out, and it started collapsing. In the next instant, Freddy saw a man clad in synthetic black armor scurry out like a cockroach, running and trying to reach the other tower.

Every cell in Freddy's body burst into action, and it almost felt like time itself was slowing to a crawl. He gripped the javelin tight enough to leave imprints of his fingers on it, and with every bit of focus, he threw it.

The javelin flew like an arrow, and before the running man even realized what was happening, it struck him right in the side of his temple, crushing straight through his helmet and piercing through his skull. The force of the blow was enough to send the man tumbling like a ragdoll off the side of the battlements and down to the battlefield below.

"Yes!" he shouted with a satisfied grin. One down.

Freddy could only see three towers from inside the gate where he and Lucas were hiding. He heard the other two towers collapse outside his field of view.

The army had already surrounded the entire fortress, with several soldiers already climbing up on the battlements. That meant there was only one place the rest of the invaders could be hiding. There was no way they didn't know where he was. And they had already blown up one tower. The logical next thing to do would be to…

Freddy suddenly whirled and turned to face one of the walls next to the shadow barrier. A double-star Flowing Strike flew out. With near-perfect timing, his fist landed on the wall.

A deafening explosion sounded, shattering the stone and creating a large hole.

On the other side of a wall, a man who had been in the middle of planting an explosive tried to defend himself, but the flying shards struck him at point-blank, shattering several of his bones and sending him tumbling back.

Freddy stepped through the hole and turned towards the back of the gate. There, he spotted the rest of the enemies.

One more man and two women in full synthetic gear stood with explosives in their hands. Before they could react, Freddy threw a javelin, hitting one of the women right below her clavicle. She flew back, still alive, but not for long with such an injury.

The other two cursed and pulled out two shortswords, with the man rushing towards Freddy and the woman running around the other side of the wall, likely aiming for Lucas.

"Oh no you don't!" Freddy jumped back inside and pulled Lucas back, just in time to stop a shadowy tentacle from grabbing him by the neck and taking him hostage.

The two assassins pulled back, but Freddy couldn't just remain inside the gate. They could still try to blow him up. But charging outside was similarly dangerous.

"Lucas! Keep your shield up!" he shouted as he picked the boy up and charged outside.

"The defenders are there!" a general screamed from the battlements. "Archers, take aim!"

Freddy blocked the incoming arrows with his back as he looked for the assassins. They had been in the middle of planting more explosives, but with Freddy charging out, they rushed to hide from his javelins.

He was met with an absolutely absurd stalemate.

While archers kept pelting him from the battlements, Freddy ran in circles around the central tower, trying to get a good look at the assassins to kill them. But in response, the assassins kept running around in the other direction to hide from Freddy.

"Come on, you cowards!" he yelled angrily. "Stop playing Ring Around the Rosie and just fucking fight me!"

But this couldn't last much longer. The soldiers were already descending from the walls, and soon enough, they would all be surrounded. But this was good. Freddy had full confidence in his ability to face the army.

These stealth-focused assassins, on the other hand, stood no chance of survival if they were caught in this situation.

Just as Freddy was starting to feel confident, he slipped up. One of the assassins had hidden on the balcony, and as Freddy passed, the man leaped down and stabbed him in the back. The attack only barely pushed through the trenchcoat, his armor, and his tough skin, but that seemed to be enough. Through the very tip of the shortsword, Freddy felt an incomparably nasty energy invade his body.

It took the form of a leech-like parasite that crawled into the nearest blood vessel and snuck inside. Freddy whirled and punched out at the assassin, but the man pulled back, even leaving his sword behind.

"I got him!" the man shouted confidently.

"You got who, you—" Freddy's words caught in his throat as he realized what the man meant. The parasite quickly made its way through his circulatory system and, before long, made it right into his heart. As soon as it reached its target, it rapidly expanded. If it weren't for his ridiculous toughness, that would have completely torn his heart apart.

But even this was a critical hit. It tore a part of his heart, causing internal bleeding, and the violent sensation left him stunned—paralyzed, even.

At this moment, the soldiers were already all around them.

In the brief moment of weakness, a tentacle wrapped around Lucas and tore him out of Freddy's grip. The boy screamed, but the woman put a shortsword to his neck to shut him up. "Quickly, finish him!" the woman said.

The man rushed towards Freddy, aiming a sword right at his neck.

The sword stabbed into Freddy's throat, cutting one of his jugular veins and severing his windpipe. The man clearly thought this was it for Freddy.

He obviously didn't expect Freddy to grab him by the throat and snap his neck like a twig. The crunching sound echoed through the already noisy bailey, and Freddy whirled around, already in the middle of conjuring a Blood Javelin. He threw it at the woman, aiming straight for her head.

The projectile hit.

But not before her sword cut right through Lucas's throat.