Free Web NovelChapter 4: Chapter 4: E-Rank Beast
The forest was silent except for the sound of footsteps of two people.
Lucian’s — silent, purposeful, cutting through the undergrowth like a blade.
And another set. Clumsy. Hesitant. Annoying.
He stopped.
"Stop following me."
Theresa froze twenty meters behind him, half-hidden behind a twisted oak. Her face was still flushed from earlier — that delicious, embarrassing flush that Lucian had already filed away as a fond memory.
"I—" she started, then swallowed. "You seem lost. I can help you out of the forest."
Lucian turned slowly, silver hair catching the moonlight. His expression was flat.
"Lost," he repeated.
"The beast territory extends for another thirty kilometers in that direction," Theresa said, gesturing vaguely. "If you keep walking that way, you’ll hit a D-rank nesting ground. But there’s a patrol path that cuts through the eastern ridge — I know it. I’ve walked it a hundred times."
Lucian studied her. Late Neophyte Realm. F-rank ability. Useless in a fight. Probably useless in most things.
But she knew the forest.
"Alright," he said after a long moment. "Huh... what’s your name again?"
"It’s Theresa. Theresa." She said it twice, like she was surprised he’d asked.
"Fine. Lead the way, Theresa."
She nodded quickly and moved past him on unsteady legs. He fell into step behind her.
They walked in silence for a while. The forest around them was dark.
Theresa broke first.
"Are you a vampire?"
Lucian’s eyes slid to her. She wasn’t looking at him — her gaze was fixed firmly ahead, on the narrow path she was navigating by memory — but he could see the tension in her shoulders. The way her hands trembled at her sides.
"None of your business," he said flatly. "And it’s not good to be nosy. Just lead the way."
Theresa’s mouth opened, then closed. She nodded again.
The path wound through increasingly dense forest, the trees pressing close on either side like silent sentinels. Lucian’s enhanced senses tracked everything — the heartbeat of a rabbit hiding in a burrow to their left, the scent of a recent kill somewhere to the north, the subtle shift in air pressure that indicated an open clearing ahead.
Lucian was about to tell her to stop, to go around, when she suddenly froze.
Her hand shot up — a universal signal to halt — and her head tilted, listening.
"What is it?" Lucian asked, though he already knew.
"Something’s coming," Theresa whispered. "Fast. From the northeast."
The trees exploded.
A wolf. It was larger than the shadow hounds Lucian had been hunting, its fur mottled with patches of hardened scales, its eyes burning with a feral intelligence that spoke of E-rank at minimum.
Early E-rank, Lucian’s mind categorized automatically. Faster than the boar. Smarter. More dangerous.
"Close your eyes!" Lucian shouted.
Theresa didn’t hesitate — she slammed her palms over her face and squeezed her eyes shut.
"Light Pulse."
The words left his mouth and the world blazed.
Pure, white light erupted from Lucian’s body in all directions — a sphere of luminescence that turned night into day for a split second. The forest was bathed in blinding radiance, every shadow banished, every dark corner illuminated.
The wolf yelped — a high, pained sound — and stumbled, its paws scrabbling at the dirt as it threw its head back and howled in agony.
Now.
Lucian moved. Light Blade formed in his hand as he closed the distance in a heartbeat.
He aimed for the throat.
The wolf moved.
Even though it was temporarily blinded, it could still use its other senses like earing. Its head snapped to the side, and Lucian’s blade met not flesh but the hardened maw that had mutated into something closer to bone armor.
CLANG!
The impact jarred Lucian’s arm. The Light Blade held but the wolf didn’t go down. It snarled, lips peeling back from teeth that gleamed like knives, and Lucian felt more than saw the muscles in its hindquarters coiling.
He pushed forward, trying to drive the blade past the maw, into the soft tissue beyond. His vampiric strength surged through his arms —
— and the wolf pushed back.
It was stronger.
What—
The wolf’s other paw came up. Lucian didn’t have time to dodge. The blow caught him in the chest hitting him like a battering ram — and he was airborne as he hit a nearby tree.
BOOM!
— and the world went white with pain.
"Gah—!"
Lucian slid down the tree trunk, gasping. His chest felt like it had been hit by a car. Ribs cracked — he could feel them, the same ribs that had just healed — and blood bubbled up in his throat.
Fucker.
"Sir!" Theresa’s voice. Footsteps, running toward him.
He waved her off, coughing. "I’m fine—"
"You’re not fine—" she was already kneeling beside him, her hands glowing with a soft, green light. "Just— hold still—"
"Minor Healing," she murmured, and pressed her palms to his chest.
Warmth spread through his torso, knitting the cracked ribs back together with a speed that rivaled his own regeneration. Not quite as fast — her ability was only E-rank, after all — but it stacked. Her healing plus his Eternal Regeneration meant the bones were mending in seconds rather than minutes.
Lucian blinked at her. "That’s... actually useful."
Theresa’s flush deepened, but she didn’t respond. Her eyes were fixed on his chest.
A growl echoed through the clearing.
Lucian’s head snapped up.
The wolf had recovered. It stood at the edge of the treeline, shaking its head, its vision clearly returning fixing on the two humans with murderous intent.
It had taken maybe fifteen seconds to shake off the Light Pulse. Less than he’d expected.
Dark-aligned creatures my ass, Lucian thought sourly. Maybe it’s not fully dark. Or maybe my spell just isn’t strong enough yet.
The wolf charged.
"Move!"
Lucian shoved Theresa to the sidesending her tumbling into a bush as she rolled the opposite direction. The wolf’s jaws snapped shut on empty air where his head had been a second before.
It skidded, turned, lunged again.
This time, Lucian didn’t try to dodge.
The teeth sank into his left arm — piercing through skin and muscle, grinding against bone — and Lucian screamed.
"FUCK—!"
But he didn’t pull away. Instead, he drove his right hand forward, Light Blade reforming in his grip, and stabbed.
The blade punched into the wolf’s left eye.
Schlick!
The wolf howled — a sound of pure rage and pain — and its jaws loosened. Lucian ripped his arm free, tearing flesh in the process, and stabbed again.
Schlick! Right eye.
The wolf thrashed, blind now but Lucian didn’t stop. He climbed onto its back, legs wrapped around its heaving flanks, and drove the blade down again.
Schlick! Schlick! Schlick!
Into the empty eye sockets. Into the skull. Over and over and over, each strike accompanied by a wet, crunching sound, each strike spraying hot blood across his face and chest.
The wolf’s thrashing weakened.
Schlick.
Its legs buckled.
Schlick.
Schlick.
It stopped moving.
Lucian didn’t stop stabbing.
Schlick. Schlick. Schlick.
The skull was pulp now. The wolf’s head was a ruined, bloody mess that barely resembled anything alive. Blood pooled beneath the corpse, soaking into the forest floor, thick and dark and satisfying.
"Hah... hah... hah..."
Lucian’s breath came in ragged gasps. His arm throbbed — the bite wound was already healing and he was drenched in blood from head to toe.
He finally stopped stabbing.
The system chimed.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ ⚔ COMBAT NOTIFICATION ⚔ ║
║ You have successfully slain an E-Rank Beast: ║
║ ◀ MUTATED DIRE WOLF (EARLY) ▶ ║
║ REWARDS: ║
║ • EXP: +100 ║
║ • Bloodline Seal: -1% ║
║ (Current Seal: 96% LOCKED) ║
║ ⚠ NOTE: Bloodline Seal Progress ║ freeweɓnovel.cøm
║ At 95% seal, the host will undergo FULL VAMPIRIC TRANSITION.
║ Physical changes will become permanent. ║
║ Sunlight weakness will intensify. ║
║ Blood dependence will increase. ║
║ This process cannot be reversed. ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
Lucian stared at the notification, blood dripping from his chin.
Full vampiric transition.
He should have been afraid. Should have been horrified at the thought of losing whatever humanity he had left, of becoming something more than human, something that burned in sunlight and craved blood like oxygen.
Instead, he felt...
Anticipation.
"System," he said aloud. "Show me my stats. All of them and compare it to a normal human."
The window shifted, expanding.
╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ HOST STATISTICS ║
║ Lucian Grimaud vs. Normal Human ║
╠═════════════════════════════════╣
║ STRENGTH ║
║ Host: 850 kg (bench press) ║
║ Human: 70 kg (average male) ║
║ Multiplier: ~12x ║
║ Note: Vampiric bloodline enhancement active. ║ ╠═════════════════════════════════╣
║ AGILITY ║
║ Host: 45 m/s (sprint speed) ║
║ Human: 8 m/s (average male) ║
║ Multiplier: ~5.6x ║
║ Note: Reflexes enhanced further by sensory expansion. ║ ╠═════════════════════════════════╣
║ STAMINA ║
║ Host: 12 hours (continuous combat before exhaustion) ║
║ Human: 30 minutes (intense) ║
║ Multiplier: ~24x ║
║ Note: Blood energy can supplement stamina. ║ ╠═════════════════════════════════╣
║ MANA ║
║ Host: 4,500 units ║
║ Human (Awakened): 500-2,000 ║
║ Multiplier: ~2.25x - 9x ║
║ Note: A-rank ability provides larger base pool. Cultivation will increase this further. ║ ╠═════════════════════════════════╣
║ SENSORY PERCEPTION ║
║ Host: Enhanced (Vampiric) ║
║ Human: Baseline ║
║ - Hearing: 200m range ║
║ - Smell: Track by scent ║
║ - Vision: Night vision ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
Twelve times human strength. Nearly six times human speed. Twenty-four times human stamina.
And he’d still been overpowered by a mid E-rank beast.
"That wolf," Lucian muttered, wiping blood from his eyes. "Its physical strength was at least... what? Two thousand kilos? More?"
The system didn’t answer. It wasn’t a thinking entity — just a tool. But the math was easy enough to do.
If he was 12x human strength, that put him at around 850 kilos of force. The wolf had swatted him away like a fly. That meant its strength was at least double his — probably more, given how effortlessly it had sent him flying.
E-rank beasts are no joke.
"Sir?" Theresa’s voice, small and shaky, from somewhere behind him. "Is it... is it dead?"
Lucian turned. She was still in the bush, staring at him with wide eyes. At the corpse. At the blood soaking his clothes.
"Yeah," he said. "It’s dead."
He walked toward her, and she flinched — a small, involuntary movement that she immediately tried to hide.
"Continue to lead the way," he said, his voice soft. "We’re leaving this forest."
The rest of the journey passed in silence.
The forest began to thin. The trees grew shorter, sparser, and eventually gave way to scrubland and then to paved roads — cracked and overgrown, but unmistakably human construction.
And then, rising in the distance like a monument to humanity’s stubborn refusal to die — the walls of Lyon. freewebnoveℓ.com
They were massive. Thirty meters high, reinforced with concrete and steel and mana-infused stone that glowed faintly in the moonlight. Watchtowers dotted the perimeter at regular intervals, searchlights sweeping the ground outside.
The city beyond the walls was a sprawl of lights and buildings, a fortress of humanity in a world that wanted them extinct.
Lucian stopped at the edge of the treeline, staring at those walls.
"Thank you," Theresa said quietly. She was standing a few meters away, clearly wanting to run but too afraid to move too fast. "For... for not killing me."
Lucian glanced at her.
"Don’t thank me yet," he said. "I might change my mind."
Theresa paled further, but she didn’t run. She just nodded once, turned, and began walking toward the main gate at a pace that was just short of sprinting.
