Sanguine Paradise
Chapter 5: [Day 2] – “Prey”

∼ Day 2 ∼

After once again returning to awareness. I started looking around to survey my surroundings in an attempt to spot any possible opportunity or danger that might have arisen during my slumber.

From my immediate scan, there doesn't seem to be anything of note. I fluttered my wings and gave a silent recognition of my recent size increase. It would seem that each level gives me a substantial increase in the size of this new evolution. From about 10cm in length, I've grown another 2cm because of the stat increase from both leveling and Siphon.

Feeling the heat from the sun warming my body, I drew my attention upwards towards the sky. The sun here in this world is quite bri- wait, that's not a sun.

Those are twin suns...

Now that the suns were high in the sky, I could somewhat differentiate the two suns from each other.

Interesting... I know from back on earth that solar systems exist with multiple suns, so I suppose it's not that crazy.

Beginning to feel rather hungry I set my mind on other things, such as hunting. For the last few times I've fed, I had only done so on horned rabbits. This was mostly because they were really the only animals I've seen that are not frogs and other critters, which are too small for me to go unnoticed if I were to feed on them.

And now with my recent size increases, and the last incident with the horned rabbit, I should probably move onto bigger creatures if I can replace any that is. Other than that, only if I replace another alpha horned rabbit I could consider it, else I probably won't be feeding on them anymore. To my pleasant surprise, almost immediately after I set off I got a pleasant notification.

[Flight has reached LVL: 3]

Flying with a bit more ease than before, I began slowly traversing through the thicket of the glades, doing my best not to be spotted by any snack hungry animals. On my way, I spot quite a few horned rabbits, making me wonder why there are so many in the area compared to other creatures.

When I thought about it, this area was probably under the territory of a minor herd of these horned rabbits with the alpha as the leader if I were to guess.

Mulling over my thoughts I barely even noticed the slight shift in the vegetation of the glades. Over the next few minutes of flying, everything started to become much more humid, and the vegetation started to look more and more like that of a damp swamp.

A series of baritone grunts alerted me to the presence of something sounding quite large. Almost as soon as I heard those grunts, a strong odor also assaulted my senses.

It was quite a musky smell, and I could somehow slightly tell that the odor was from more than one of the same animal. As soon as I realized that fact, I surprisingly got a notification.

[Smell has reached LVL: 3]

I dismissed the notification as the ones responsible for it enters my vision. For a moment I was a bit stunned. Before me, stood seven giant buffalo-looking animals. But what separated them from being actual buffalos was the fact they had not four but six legs.

On each side were three massively muscled legs lined up. Other than that they also had a wide frame, with a comically wide head. What was not funny though, was the two giant horns protruding on each side of their heads. The horns looked deadly sharp and seeing as they were facing directly forward, they were obviously meant for killing.

The seven buffalo-looking beasts were just milling about, standing knee-deep in the murky swamp water out in a clearing with the treeline encircling it. The more I looked at these giant beasts, the more they seemed like the perfect living lunch boxes for me. Getting excited, I started to fly towards the closest one.

Coming in closer, I noticed a lot of different insects, such as big flies flying about the massive creatures. But I just ignored them as I didn't see any danger posed by them. Landing on the hulking beast's back, I prepared myself for some quality eating.

Stabbing the giant beast I was a bit stunned as I was almost stopped dead in my tracks before I even managed to get my needle-appendage halfway through the skin. It seemed that the beast had some really tough hide, so it took me about twenty full seconds before I could get the rest of the length in.

However, as soon as I started drinking I immediately noticed just how much thicker its blood was compared to that of the horned rabbits, which made me actually exert a no small amount of effort.

Taking an extra long amount of time to fill myself completely, about two or three minutes go by. Almost feeling like being in a drunken state at the end, I slowly tried to wiggle my needle-appendage out of the beast's thick skin. It took me a little work but I managed to get it free, only to be greeted by quite the notification.

[Siphon]

[You've consumed the blood of a Swamp Stowler]

[86 points of EXP has been acquired and stats have been added]

[Congratulation! You've reached level 4]

[Congratulation! You've reached level 5]

[You've been rewarded with 2 skill points for reaching levels 4 and 5]

[Puncture has reached LVL: 3]

[Blood Profiling has created the profile of "Swamp Stowler"]

Holy crap! These massive chunks of flesh are like gold mines!

Giddy about the raw amount of EXP I had gotten, I prepared myself to take off for a spot where I could digest the blood.

But as I lifted off, I almost immediately crashed due to the sheer amount of weight that my abdomen had taken on. It would appear that I had severely underestimated how heavy the blood of the swamp stowler truly was.

Barely righting myself midair before it got bad, I very slowly flew towards the nearest safe-looking branch. But about halfway from there, I get a surprising, but oh-so-welcome prompt.

[Flight has reached LVL: 4]

It would seem that flying with increased weight helped in the progress of leveling my flight skill.

Good to know...

Landing quite awkwardly on a thick branch, which was the one closest to me, I immediately slumped down with small little legs spread out, and inadvertently creating quite the comical scene.

Urgh... I feel both drunk, and about to burst...

Can Mosquitoes throwup?

Shaking nausea from my head, I decided to check my status.

-Status!-

[Status]

Name: "???"

Race: Lesser Sanguinite

Sex: Male

Rank: K

Level: 5/10

Health: 8/8

Stamina: 2/5

Mana: 0/0

[Attributes]

STR - 0.65 ⇒ 1

VIT - 1 ⇒ 2

AGI - 5 ⇒ 6

DEX - 3 ⇒ 4

INT - 12

CHR - 0.15 ⇒ 0.20

WILL - 11

MAG - 0.07 ⇒ 0.09

[Trait, Titles, and Skills].

Skills - 7

Traits - 3

Titles - 0

Skillpoints - 3 ⇒ 5

[Resistances]

Phy. Resistance - 0.128 ⇒ 0.155

Mag. Resistance - 0.015 ⇒ 0.030

Men. Resistance - 5

Phew! Quite the change, I've also grown noticeably once again.

These big beasts are perfect for my purpose, I just need to ke-

I cut myself off, as something caught my attention. Down by the swamp stowler that I had just fed off, the one closest to the tree line, something that scared the ever-living fuck out me happened.

One of the larger insects about half the size of me was suddenly grabbed straight out of the air by a long and pink tongue. Drawing my attention up the length of the tongue to a spot on the tree next to me, I saw on a branch about five meters away from me, a giant lizard.

I could barely see this lizard due to its uncanny ability to blend almost completely in with the surroundings. And I knew, it did sound a lot like a chameleon, but while it had seemingly all the characteristics of a chameleon. Its actual form was that of something similar to a Komodo dragon.

Slowly retreating back out of sight from the giant lizard, I tried to make myself as small as possible behind the tree while looking all around me to make sure no more of these fuckers were in the vicinity. As if to mock me right now I get a notification, although it was very welcome right now.

[Hiding has reached LVL: 3]

I wonder, if that lizard had always been there, why didn't it eat me instead? I was quite a bit larger than the insect it ate, so I wonder if my hiding skill might have saved my life?

If so..... god-fucking-dammit-I-love-you-hiding.

I took another few glances around to check for other lizards. Luckily, there didn't seem to be any other of them in the vicinity. So I just decided huddle down until I had digested all of the blood from the swamp stowler.

I really didn't want to take the chance of flying away from this position while encumbered. Mostly because of the nearby lizard since I would prefer that it wouldn't spot me when I made my escape.

So for the next five whole hours, I sat on the branch listening to a song of grunts, performed by the swamp stowlers. It appeared that the blood of the swamp stowlers was not only heavier and thicker than horned rabbit blood, but it also took quite a bit longer to digest.

Hesitantly preparing myself to take off, I glanced over to where the lizard had been before. Either it wasn't there anymore, or its ability to hide is a lot scarier than I first imagined. Instead of flying directly out into the clearing, I decided instead to get to the top of the tree and then fly out.

Three minutes later of light flying and crawling, I managed to reach the top of the tree. From where I promptly launched off for my next prey, which was one of the stowlers who were standing in the center of the clearing. The reason for me choosing it was because it was the one farthest away from the treeline as possible.

I do not, and I repeat, I do not want to be lizard food...

Reaching the stowler, I landed on the end of its back. With my wings instinctively fluttering in slight anticipation, I was about to plunge my needle into its skin.

But that was apparently not going to be allowed, as a black spot in my field of vision suddenly caught my attention, only moments before hitting me smack in the side; throwing me and my hopes of easy food over the edge of the swamp stowler.

[You've received 1 damage!]

Just barely righting myself before hitting the ground, my danger senses screamed for apparently another reason than the one that just threw me off the back of the stowler.

A tongue lunged out after me. Quickly dodging the attack, before it got another chance to haul me back to whoever felt like I looked like a particularly good snack. Flying high up and out of range before the next attack would be launched at me, I quickly found out which fucker tried to eat me.

This time it wasn't a lizard but a giant frog who was slightly submerged beneath the murky swamp water. Looking around, I for the first time noticed that in the water were actually multiple of these frogs hidden beneath the surface. Before I didn't notice them since they looked exactly like some of the vegetation or rocks in the water.

I should've probably guessed with so many insects here in the clearing, that there would of course be a corresponding amount of predators who prey on them.

By the way, what even threw me off the stowler in the first place?

Glancing back at the stowler I quickly realized the folly of my actions. The goddamn stowler had used its tail to instinctively to slap away insects sitting on it, and since I was on the backend of its body the tail could easily reach me.

Wincing mentally, I noticed two of my legs have become somewhat stiff from the damage done to them. So I looked up my status.

-Status!-

[Status]

Name: "???"

Race: Lesser Sanguinite

Sex: Male

Rank: K

Level: 5/10

Health: 7/8

Stamina: 3/5

Mana: 0/0

[Attributes]

STR - 1

VIT - 2

AGI - 6

DEX - 4

INT - 12

CHR - 0.20

WILL - 11

MAG - 0.09

[Trait, Titles, and Skills].

Skills - 7

Traits - 3

Titles - 0

Skillpoints - 5

[Resistances]

Phy. Resistance - 0.155

Mag. Resistance - 0.030

Men. Resistance - 5

It was quite sad that a single slight tail swipe from an oversized cow was able to take almost 15% of my max health points. If I had been struck before my evolution, that would have straight up killed me.

Sigh... I seriously have to become stronger.