[Manage to kill One Sand Worm.] ’Just one?’ Ace remained frozen, his countenance devoid of any sense of courage or hope. Whenever his system gave him objectives such as this one, it meant that it wouldn’t be easy whatsoever. What made it worse was what Helda had said a few seconds earlier. ’That’s because we were fighting the babies.’ "Let us proceed," Helda added, her hands aligned by teeth on her knuckles. The Granian moved ahead, taking one step after the other. The ground was flat and void of any action, making it even more frightening and unpredictable. The Blood Mutants watched as the Granian, who was now in a crouched position, moved as slowly as she could. [System Scan Skill: Activated.] [Error: Skill Unavailable.] ’What?’ Ace began to panic, having never experienced something before. His system always worked in favor of him. Seeing it do this now, of all times, was alarming yet understandable. The system scan skill acted like a cheat for Ace so he figured that it being taken off would make it more of a worthy challenge. Either that or his system wanted him to die. "Can’t take any chances." Ace said while allocating all thirteen of his stat points into his stats. Ace took the lead and ran ahead of Helda, his senses at their highest for he didn’t wish to get caught off guard. Fifty feet away from Helda, he was met by spinal bones moving in and out of the sand circling him. The ground beneath him started to shake violently and eventually started to sink. Ace knew exactly what was happening so he quickly held out his hands and turned them into long, thick, jagged blades. With one lunge, the Blood Mutant thrust himself a couple of feet in the air and watched as a massive pair of jaws opened up beneath him. Unprepared for it, Ace found himself falling into an extremely large Sand Worm’s mouth before it closed in on him. The others watched in horror as the beast emerged from the ground. Cherry, angered by this heavily, was about to run and kill the beast. However, Jim stood in her way and pointed at the beast’s mouth. A blood mess spewed all over as the creature wiggled and jiggled uncontrollably. The more it struggled, the more blood it lost, thus attracting even larger beasts towards it. "He’s still alive," Jim said. "But we better hurry. That blood’s attracting others towards it." As soon as Jim uttered those words, three Sand Worms, as big as the Empire State Building, broke through the ground and surrounded the slightly smaller one which swallowed Ace whole. Helda stood back, clearly having no hopes of taking on the beasts before her. Anya, Cherry, and Jim ran straight into the chaos and decided to attack the smaller one, with the help of the larger beasts of course. Anya was the first to take off, running at full speed while sliding under the more giant worms. With her hands turned into blades, she sliced deep into the beasts and drained as much blood as she could, making a streamline of blood behind her. Cherry followed shortly after, and just like Anya, she too cut the beast she slid under and took out a handsome amount of blood. Instead of using it to make weapons, she added all of it to her body, making her slightly bigger than normal. Jim followed the strategy used by Anya and Cherry while also making weapons of his own from the extracted blood. At this moment, the three blood mutants got to the smaller worm before the larger ones did. Upon arrival, the creature’s body was all swollen and bloated. Its mouth was stained with its blood, and its whitish-pink skin was as pale as a ghost. "Quick, before the others get here!!" Jim said while creating a ring of blood around the smaller worm. With him and the others inside the ring, he continued to increase its size until it was almost as thick and long as a medium-sized wall. "Kill the damn thing. It’s obvious that Ace is fighting inside it....." Follow current novᴇls on 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡~𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢~𝙣𝙚𝙩 [Combo Aspect: Activated.] [Combo of Choice: Blood Drill.] Inside the smaller worm’s body was Ace who was struggling to stay alive. Its insides were soft, squishy, and slimy, making it harder for him to get his footing. Out of frustration, Ace would create multiple tendrils and slice as much as he could inside the beast. Nonetheless, the more he attacked, the more the creature fought back by wiggling and squeezing its insides, further constricting his movements. Angrily, Ace decided to break free by using his Combo, Blood Drill. With his claws he scratched deep inside the beast’s insides, and with his palms he collected large amounts of blood. When the moment was right, he activated the Blood Drill skill, despite the negative effect it had on him. The skill began with cones of blood swirling around his arms. The cones would then spin immensely with the blood mutant maintaining them. He then quickly stuck his hands inside the creature’s guts, causing more internal injuries and wounds. The creature wailed and screamed in pain, but its oppressor wasn’t finished with it yet. The Blood Mutant cleared the guts constricting it and moved towards its mouth. The atrocious smells, viscous saliva, and slippery muscle walls were working together to keep down the Blood Mutant. Sadly for the worm, Ace was more than determined to leave the pits of its stomach. His hands drained as much blood as possible while the drills ripped off chunks of flesh. The gathered blood was shot in all directions in the form of spikes. "I’m completing this quest, no matter what. And I’m gonna kill another one of your kind." With one last push, the Blood Mutant was now in the worm’s throat and could see its mouth overflowing with Blood. The creature started wiggling around uncontrollably while squeezing the walls of its throat to push Ace back. Each time it did so, Ace would drill his hands and rip flesh apart, causing the worm to cry out in pain. ’Crap. The backlash of this combo’s intense.’ He complained while feeling his muscles develop into cramps. ’I have to hurry up with this.’ One last time, Ace ripped apart the worm’s insides while being knee-deep in blood. This came at an advantage for him, allowing him to prepare for his grand escape. Canceling his Blood Drill Combo, the blood mutant used his arms and controlled all the Blood behind him to thrust his body out of the worm’s mouth. While escaping, Ace left a trail of blood spikes that protruded inside the beast’s remaining internal organs. The creature was weakened and severely bruised to fight anymore and with one last wiggle, it remained flat on the ground, dead and defeated. As for Ace, he slipped out of its jaws with sore arms and Blood following him as if it were from a waterfall. "Wow!! You killed it that easily?" Cherry asked as she, Anya, and Jim channeled as much blood as they could into a blood wall of sorts. "It wasn’t that much of a problem." He said while eagerly waiting for his system to pop up with a congratulatory message. Alas, his system didn’t do such, leaving him to wonder whether he completed the quest or not. ’Could it be because this wasn’t much of a challenge for me?’ He wondered. Just then, Ace caught sight of the three colossal worms surrounding them. These were ten times the size compared to the one he was in. [Manage to Kill at least one of those worms.] [Reward: One Blood Point. His system popped up with a cheeky tonation behind its automated voice. The Blood Mutant finally realized what it wanted him to do and judging by its reward, he understood how difficult it was going to be. "What’s your plan, Jim?" Ace joined the others as he channeled blood into the wall. "What’s this wall for?" "As soon as those creatures get close enough to us, we’ll all create blood spikes that’ll penetrate through their heads. That should at least try to slow them down while we dash to One Horn. "That won’t work!!" Ace answered, having remembered trying something like that to the one he just killed. "It will take all of the blood we have to create one large enough to even scar it." "He’s right." Anya added. "Look at those scales underneath. If we want to do some significant damage to them, we’ll have to get on top of them or...." "Inside them." Ace and Cherry chimed with wild grins on their faces. In one way or the other, Ace was starting to adopt his sister’s wild side whenever it came to killing. Besides, the creatures he was killing were mindless beasts who didn’t know any better than to kill, eat, mate, repeat. "You two can’t be serious, right?" Jim questioned but didn’t get a response. Meanwhile, He and Anya decided to attack from the top of the beasts, instead of running into their mouths head first. "On my count, we all move." Jim said as he and the others watched the worms peering over them with their towering heights. All at once, the worms lunged for the humans, each one dropping their heads to slam into the ground.