047 LOOKING FOR THE HOUNDS' MURDER WEAPON
"But it's no simple path. You must train your mind—your psychic powers. Only a mind sharpened and disciplined enough can leash the Blue Blood. With enough mental strength, and with the right artifacts to support, you won't just restrain it… you can even bend it to your will," Zalira added.
"Psychic?" Damen almost laughed. "That's the hardest meta there is to master."
Zalira's gaze flickered across him like she was reading more than his face. "And yet… I can already feel psychic ripples in you. Powerful ones. Perhaps you've awakened them without realizing it."
"I have psychic powers now?" Damen asked confused.
"Not psychic powers but psychic will", she replied.
Zalira stepped back before turning toward Eryn, her hand brushing her daughter's cheek in farewell. "Take her back safely," she said softly.
Damen's brow furrowed. "Psychic will? When would I have…"
Then the realization struck him like a jolt.
He drew in a sharp breath. "Of course, my DemoCoin mining app. It's a manifest of powerful psychic energy", he told himself.
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After Eryn poured out her heart to Zalira, it was finally time to leave. She turned to Damen, her cheeks streaked with tears. "Damen, I'm ready. Let's go."
She brushed her teary face clean with the back of her hand.
Damen gave her a cheeky grin, pulled out his phone, and snapped a photo of Zalira.
Eryn's eyes widened. "What did you just do?"
"Relax. Just a remembrance," Damen said, half-smiling.
"You're right," Eryn whispered, and stepped forward to take her own photos with her mother. The moment was awkwardly tender, suspended between love and farewell.
Then they departed, winding through the cold tunnels.
A pair of shadow hounds lunged from the dark, but Damen's bone blades sliced them down before they could even snarl.
Eryn finally asked curiously, "Those blades… what are they?"
"My secret weapon," Damen said flatly. "Don't tell anyone especially those in your family."
"Alright." She smiled faintly, then leaned against him.
"What are you doing?" he asked, his brow raised.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Without you… I would never have found my mother."
Damen's sharpness softened. "I'm glad. But next time—don't be so reckless. If Zalira hadn't been protecting you, you'd be dead in this cavern long ago."
"I know," she promised. "No more recklessness."
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After a long upward trek, the glow of lights met them: the cavern housing the Veyran command post.
"Buddy!" A booming voice echoed.
Zairgid came running. "I thought you were in hell already—I was rehearsing your funeral notes!"
Damen shot him a look. "Buddy…" Then they hugged, laughter shaking off the tension.
Captain Green hurried over, guilt etched into his face. "It's my fault. I never should have brought you here. I—"
"It's fine," Damen cut him off. "I'm still alive, aren't I?"
Then Zairgid's voice erupted. "Wait—what the hell? Eryn Veyran?! You bitch, we found you at last!"
Captain Green stiffened. "Is it true? Did you find her?"
"Yes," Damen said smoothly. "I was running from the hounds when I found her. She'd hidden herself in a force field, so we waited it out together. Once the Blue Blood receded, we came back."
Eryn leaned closer, whispering, "Will they believe that?"
"They will…if you back me up," Damen murmured back. She smiled knowingly.
"Miss Eryn!" Fenyl rushed over, nearly stumbling in his haste. "Young Miss, we found you at last!"
"No, it was Damen who found me," Eryn corrected, taking Damen's arm gently.
"Ooooh…" Zairgid teased, grinning wide.
While Eryn was absorbed by her team's reunion, Damen slipped his phone out.
He scrolled to his favorites list and selected.
Name: Zalira Veyran
Rank: D
Strength: 29 | Charm: 18 | Meta: 280 | Command: 261 | Blood: 360 | Armor: 360
Zalira was still in the mountains and within range.
"She's okay", he murmured. He was checking on Zalira with his app.
But then he saw it—an option he had never noticed before.
Beneath Acquire… there was another button: Relinquish.
"What the hell?" he muttered.
He tapped it experimentally. Only one stat blinked active—Blood.
Curious, he pressed. At once, Zalira's Blood stat rose by one. He checked his own—his had dropped by one.
Blood: 189 | Armor: 190
His pulse spiked. "Damnit… this is the loophole."
With trembling hands, he tested the logic.
By killing Blue Bloods, his Blood and Armor stat would grow by one point respectively. But by relinquishing Blood away… he could siphon off the corruption of Blood stats while keeping the good part, his innate body armor, intact.
His lips curled into a grin. "I'm a genius."
By the time the expedition packed up and returned to the canyon, Damen reclined in the Humvee, exhausted. Outside, the desert rolled by in silence, while he slept.
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When Damen returned to Fort Myrone, he went straight to the training center.
The simulators flared to life around him, throwing wave after wave of digital opponents at him—mercs, beasts, assassins, soldiers.
To his shock, he cut through them like paper.
His movements were sharper, his instincts razor-fast. The Blue Blood had sharpened him beyond recognition. Every strike landed with surgical precision, every dodge was reflexive. Within hours he had assassinated nearly every opponent in the database.
When he finally stumbled out of the simulator pod, sweat dripping down his face, Captain Green was waiting.
"Damen," Green called, his tone low. "There's something I need to ask you."
Damen froze inside. "Did they find out about my curse?"
He forced a casual smile. "What is it, Captain Green?"
Green's eyes narrowed. "That time in the mountains… did you kill all those shadow hounds?"
Damen's stomach tightened. He hesitated, then shrugged. "Didn't your team mow most of them down with the rifles? I was so rattled, I barely remember the details."
Damen cursed under his breath. "Damnit. They came to me about it already."
Damen's pulse quickened. He remembered the fight and his bone blades tearing through the necks of hound after hound. If they knew about the bone blades… they'd lock him in a lab as a lab rat.
Lieutenant Kalmer stepped forward, disbelief etched on his face. "Damen… did you actually kill a shadow hound by yourself?"
"I… guess I did." He scratched the back of his head, playing shy.
Green clapped his shoulder. "Don't downplay your merits. If you did, you deserve the credit."
Then his eyes hardened. "But there's one thing I don't understand. How did you kill them without an energy weapon? Without a weapon even? Your dagger couldn't sever the head of a Shadow hound."
Kalmer turned to Green sharply. "Wait—you didn't issue him one?"
"That was my oversight," Green admitted, then swung back to Damen.
"So, tell me, son—how did you do it? Kill the Shadow Hounds without an energy weapon?"
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