Chapter 105.Jinxed
The creatures were moving towards him.
Wherever they passed, all the plants in the ocean around them would wither and die.
They were secreting bubbles from their bodies. The plants withered and died as soon as the bubbles touched them.
Numerous blobs of blood appeared before Aiden and transformed into crimson arrows. The arrows shot towards the transparent jelly-like creatures.
The crimson arrows shattered under the impact of the sea pressure before they even reached the approaching transparent jelly-like creatures.
The blobs of blood reassembled again. Aiden manifested more blobs of blood and merged them with the other blobs of blood. Thicker and more durable crimson arrows formed.
This time, they didn’t shatter under the ocean pressure. They were more durable than before.
They shot towards the transparent jelly-like creatures.
They appeared before the creatures. However, instead of killing the creatures, the crimson arrows passed through the jelly-like creatures without killing them.
The jelly-like creatures also kept releasing the poisonous bubbles wherever they passed.
"This is bad. I can’t kill them. Their bodies absorb kinetic penetrating impacts and phase them out of their bodies. I need to think of another method to get rid of them," Aiden thought.
Aiden attacked their bubbles with crimson arrows so that the bubbles would not kill him. The bubbles burst. But the creatures produced more.
If he did not deal with the jelly-like creatures, it was only a matter of time before the bubbles overwhelmed him and killed him.
Aiden did not advance towards them. He retreated to separate the distance between him and them.
This was to buy enough time for himself to come up with a plan before they got to his location.
"Explosive impacts may work," Aiden thought. He wanted them to explode from within. He was not so sure it would work, but the creatures absorbed kinetic penetrative impacts and phased them out of their bodies. If he tried explosive impacts, maybe it could work.
Blobs of his blood appeared before him and transformed into crimson balls.
Instead of launching towards the jelly-like creatures with extreme speed, the crimson balls moved at a normal pace towards the jelly-like creatures.
As for Aiden, he retreated back to widen the distance between him and the creatures again.
The crimson balls eventually arrived before the jelly-like creatures.
The crimson balls did not attack the jelly-like creatures.
The crimson balls slowly entered the transparent bodies of the creatures.
However, before they phased out of the bodies of the creatures, Aiden willed the crimson balls to compress further. Then, under his will, the crimson balls exploded outwards with extreme force.
The vibrations generated from the explosion of the crimson balls spread through the bodies of the transparent jelly-like creatures.
Their bodies started to burst apart.
Aiden sighed in relief. "It worked."
The poisonous bubbles generated by the large group of jelly-like creatures started to disappear as the bodies of the jelly-like creatures kept bursting apart consecutively.
Very soon, all the jelly-like creatures were dead. The destroyed crimson balls turned into blobs of blood and returned back into Aiden.
Aiden approached them and absorbed their blood essence. There were thousands of them. He absorbed the blood essence of those in a 200-meter radius, then moved ahead and absorbed the blood essence of others in a 200-meter radius. Because of this, he was able to absorb the blood essence of thousands of these creatures quickly.
After absorbing the blood essence of more than half of the corpses of the creatures, the accumulated blood essence required for his next breakthrough had been met. All of the accumulated blood essence resonated. He felt a great surge of strength. His range of vision grew wider.
"My power is now at the level of an advanced rank 2 warrior."
Also, Aiden figured out his range of absorbing blood essence had increased considerably. He was able to absorb the blood essence of creatures in a 500 meters range!
This was extremely absurd! Aiden simply absorbed the blood essence of the remaining corpses in a 500-meter radius.
After that, he didn’t move forward. He stayed in his current location. With his increased range of sight, he was able to cover and scan a wider distance than he previously could.
Aiden wanted to map out the hierarchy of creatures ahead of him before he prepared to move. He did not want to be in a dangerous situation like he had been in previously.
Aiden saw no creatures ahead of him for as far as his range of vision could reach.
"This is not good," Aiden thought. "Something terrifying is up ahead. It must have either scared all the creatures ahead away, or it must have eaten them all. My vision range cannot reach where it’s hiding. I need to move further."
Aiden decided to move.
As he moved, he kept scanning the region ahead of him.
"The deep sea pressure is not as unbearable as before. Must be because I broke through," Aiden thought.
"Shit... I jinxed it," he cursed and coughed as his crimson armor burst apart and his skin started to tear.
As he moved further, the pressure intensified.
He quickly reinforced his crimson armor with more blood that lessened the pressure to a considerably bearable level. He flapped his wings and propelled himself further. His wounds started to heal at an extremely faster pace than when his power was at the level of an intermediate rank 2 warrior. Very soon, his injuries were completely healed.
He kept scanning across the place. He could not see any creature ahead of him. The sea was completely silent and eerie. There was nothing ahead or behind him.
Aiden was the only one in the depths of the silent, dreadful sea.
The only thing he saw occasionally were the skeletons of large sea creatures.
"They must have been dead for a very long time."
Aiden tried to see if he could find some blood essence in the skeleton and absorb it. But he found nothing.
He stared at the lifeless bones for a moment before nodding. What happened reinforced his understanding.
Aiden stared at the lifeless bones before shaking his head. "Makes sense." He sighed. "Seriously, am I going mad? Why would I try to absorb blood essence from a skeleton. Was I thinking I could just walk into an ancient battlefield one day and just absorb blood essence from skeletons? Blood essence isn’t blood itself. It is contained within the blood of a creature. The Life Anchor only prevents me from absorbing the blood essence within someone’s blood while they are alive. Once the creature dies, that restriction disappears."
"However, blood essence cannot exist independently forever. It is found in the blood. Once the blood is gone or completely destroyed, the blood essence dissipates with it. A skeleton has no blood, and therefore, no blood essence left to absorb."
Aiden continued his journey. He saw more skeletons of chaotic beasts along the way in the ocean depths.
Then, he suddenly squinted his eyes. His scan ahead finally picked up on something.
"What the hell is that?"