Shadow Slave: Bloodborne

Back to the scene where Ragna was fighting off a gate alone, it was still the same.

All the normal creatures were long dead, only the gateguardian, Ragna and his echoes left. In total, there were still 4 minutes left till the forces if the government would arrive.

Ragna didn't look to well, the gateguardian being stronger than he had ever expected.

Its ability to turn something solid into liquid and back was hard to fight against. Ragna pretty much couldn't spend any time on the ground, always jumping into the air.

But being airborne also wasn't that beneficial for him, since that meant that he had less control over his body and would be easier to predict.

'I need to do something, something that'll make me able to not get sucked into the ground,atleast till the government forces arrive.'

He looked all over the ground, while he was falling down right now.

'God, is there something else than corpses ? Wait ... corpses ?'

As he landed and rolled to the side, his fingers suddenly were covered with one ring each.

"Right, I can manipulate corpses."

As the crimson strings darted through the air, attaching to an awakened creature he had killed before, it suddenly came back to life, but only as a puppet for its master.

In the few minutes that Ragna had fought the gate guardian, he had noticed that it couldn't use its ability repeatedly without waiting a few seconds, meaning that if he could somehow avoid one of those annoying moves, he could make an opening for himself.

As the creature came back to life, its body being manipulated by the crimson strings, Ragna jumped onto it, before making it dash towards the gate guardian.

As the ground turned liquid under them, Ragna jumped off, sacrificing the awakened monster, but also making him able to now run towards the gate guardian.

The gate guardian noticing that his technique didn't work, slashed his sword towards Ragna from both sides.

It was like a scissor was going to cut Ragna in half, but only if he didn't do anything against it, or rather if his echoes didn't.

Cera and Queen both came to his rescue. Since the gate guardians focus was solely on Ragna, Cera used the opportunity to splash blood into its eyes, making it unable to see, while Queen summoned her armor, pulling Ragna over the swords and taking the hit herself.

As she let him go, Ragna fell onto the swords and ran them up, jumping onto the gate guardians shoulder and thrusting the Mirrorblade into its throat.

The pain and blindness made the creature scream loudly, knocking Ragna off itself, but not before he left a bloodmark onto it.

By the time Ragna landed onto the ground, the creature was able to see again and tried stomping on him.

As Ragna saw the foot get closer to his head, being his impending doom, time suddenly slowed down, atleast for him.

'What so I do ? Memory ? No. Echo ? Also no ...'

[Aspect Name: Bloodlorde]

[Aspect description]: "You are the heir to an unholy lineage. As the Bloodlorde you gain immense strength and speed, at the cost of your humanity"

[Innate Abilities]: [Blood Oath] [Bloodflow failure]

[Bloodflow failure]: "You can feel the blood in other creatures and manipulate it to a slight degree, stopping their bloodflow and making them grow limp"

Ragna had always sensed the blood flowing in other creatures, but he never was able to use his innate ability because he didn't have the power to manipulate essence, but since he awakened, he now did.

His brain worked automatically, like the ability to control Bloodflow was engraved into his mind. In less than a split of a second, the nightmare creatures right leg suddenly grew limp, making it fall onto its knee and allowing Ragna to evade its stomp.

Before the creature could stand up, queen had already pierced its left eye with her sword, making it go fully blind, atleast in one eye.

His innate ability had made him enable to get out of this dire situation, but it had also cost him more essence than he ahd anticipated.

'Two minutes left …'

He needed to only survive for two more minutes.

There was still the mark on the creatures body, the one he had placed before he jumped off its large shoulder.

He quickly looked around, hoping that he would maybe find a worm or something, so he could attack the Nightmare Creature without confronting it directly. But to his disdain, there was none.

But suddenly, the creature started to scream, its muscles growing larger and the horns growing more dangerous.

And before he could react, the ground not only changed liquid under him, but also shot all around him, before closing up again, making Ragna look like he was in a cocoon.

Without any way to escape, and his echoes not being able to help him in any way, he suddenly felt a force of unimaginable power crushing him from the side.

The cocoon tore, and Ragna flew through the air and crashed into a car, everything in his body hurting.

(PAPA !)

'My head hurts .. i'm bleeding,'

He felt dizzy, unable to move and being close to unconsciousness. Ragna noticed how the creature was slowly approaching, completly ignoring how queen and Cera were attacking it.

'Theres still a minute and a half left … the government forces won't arrive in time. Is this the end ?'

As the Creature raised one of its swords, Ragna just looked up and sighed.

And yet, he wasn't dead yet, as he suddenly saw a Large and muscular woman, holding a spear and shield in her hands. Ahe also had olive skin and brown hair.

But before he could see anything else, his eyes suddenly closed and he just laid on the ground.

Thankfully, he wasn't completly unconscious yet, if he was, he didn't even dare to think what would have happened, or rather were he would've been send yet, since he wasn't yet connected to a citadel.

He summoned the pot of flesh memory, just letting his body slowly heal.

He heard fighting and grunting sounds, only the creatures and the woman's one, but just a minute later, he heard something heavy drop onto the ground, and the sounds suddenly stopped, before he heard voice, multiple voices.

"Who that kid is ? I don't know. I just randomly saw him fighting the gate guardian. I think he fought of the gate alone. Thankfully I came right in time."

Ragna then heard steps comming towards him.

"Hey kid, are you okay ?"

His eyes slowly fluttered open and when he opened his mouth, he coughed out a little bit of blood.

"Uh, yeah, im fine. Is the gate guardian dead ?"

"Yeah, it is, I killed it.", she said, before suddenly laughing.

"You did great, by the way. How did you fight off a whole gate completly alone, well, atleast till the end ?"

Ragna didn't answer for a while, not because he didn't want to, but rather because he was too exhausted.

"I have a pretty useful ability against hordes of Nightmare Creatures, I guess."

He then closed his eyes again, continuing to rest without sleeping.

Minutes passed, as Ragna just rested while ignoring the people talking all around him. After a while he had also heard more cars arrive and loud "clicks", like pictures were being taken.

'So loud …'

After a while, he his body had felt a little bit more energetic again, thanks to the pot of flesh memory. Ragna then decided to stand up again, looking around him. There were way more people here now, some awakened people, some normal.

'Now they come, when its already done.'

When he turned around, his vision was suddenly met with a blinding light, another "clicks" evading his ears.

"Take more pictures ! We need to release the pages first. Quick, write down a good headline, like "The hero who fought off a gate alone."

'Eh ? It's me who they are taking pictures off ? Headlines . Are they making an article about me ? Well, thats one way to get known to the world, I guess.

Hm, i wonder where my echoes are. Did they get send back to my sea of soul automatically ?'

As even more pictures were taken of him, from multiple teams and ever side, the large woman stepped inbetween him and the cameras, hiding him.

"Can't the kid have some privacy ? He's exhausted, for gods sake !"

The street suddenly went silent again, as the blinding lights disappeared.

"O-of course, Lady Athena."

'Lady Athena ? Where have i heard that name before ?'

——-Author's notes——-

Words: 1438

Another chapter done!

I first had the idea to make him blackout and get send to the dream realm, leaving his body in the real world.

But i decided against it since he wasn't connected to a citadel yet and i still wanted him to do some stuff in the real world.

This is it for now.

Bye