Knights were a frightening force to witness in action, no matter how old a person was. There was no other force in the world capable of fighting armies of men with such few numbers, and this was only further amplified when these men grew more powerful by challenging Towers.
Moments before everyone was transported back into the Prime Settlement, there were hundreds of people outside the wall battling the flood of monsters. Their combined effort was only enough to slow the advance of the flesh abominations. Those in the sky had it the worst, but everyone was in an equally dire situation.
Now, that combined effort was dwarfed by only a few dozen men. The Knights, joined by their Captain who single-handedly held back the waves of monsters in the sky, were capable of replicating the efforts of the defending army with only a handful of men.
When the rest of the Climbers inevitably joined in the defensive effort, it became much easier for their might to add and fill in where the Knights and their single weapons could not. Even if each were capable of cutting apart a large sum of abominations with one swipe of their weapon, there were some gaps that numbers would be required to fill.
War often didn't include an endless flood of enemies, after all. Well, it did. None of those waves of soldiers were nearly as persistent or deranged as mindless globs of horror, hellbent on the indiscriminate eradication of all life.
As group after group of Climbers descend down the wall through various means, Worthy found himself questioning if he wanted to go down himself. He was a twelve-year-old boy, but he also had just recently received a Reward that required him to kill for it to work. He didn't know the full scope of how he worked, but he was certain that fighting the piles of flesh might leave him with tremendous boons.
'Klepto… Kleptoparasite — or however the hell you say it — sounds like it'll come in handy here.'
With the Knights joining the efforts, Worthy had no doubt in his mind that the chance of survival among the fighters had grown exponentially. Joining them down there, even if he were just a child, was now safer than ever before.
The Prime Settlement was moving, but that didn't mean they could leave it defenseless. Everyone had to do their part. Those who were still collecting their thoughts after getting teleported would join the fray sooner or later, if they hadn't already.
There was another reason that Worthy wanted to jump down and join in the battle:
[Reward - Kleptoparasitism: Long journeys can be strenuous and stressful. When you cannot sustain yourself, you must rely on others to sustain you. Only through death will you find this sustenance, however.]
The Reward he'd received from defeating Furfur of the Mind was still fresh and untested. It said only through death could he find sustenance. While the abomination of flesh perhaps were not alive, they certainly did die after receiving enough injuries. Furthermore, Furfur confirmed that each entity, dubbed the Mindless, was an entity of their own in some way. Killing them should have been more than possible.
'There isn't really much more to think about then, is there? I'll only find out how useful this ability is by testing it.'
So when a stone platform—created and controlled by one of the guards who'd resigned themselves to protecting Middle Town—arrived and created a lift to carry groups of people at once, he hopped aboard.
As the platform descended down the wall, Worthy realized that it was the first time he'd been in the wastelands since his arrival at the Accursed Port.
He couldn't remember where he'd come from. He and everyone else that traveled with War Reaver had departed from somewhere. It must've been one of the memories lost during his fight with Furfur. He didn't know what else he was missing, since he didn't have a clue what he would be looking for. Beyond all the pointless reminiscing, or attempts to reminisce, he was outside again.
Now he was faced with a force more frightening than anything that he'd faced on those mountains.
Funnily, it was those same mountains that'd come to life and threatened his livelihood.
'What am I thinking? This isn't funny at all!'
Worthy paid no mind to the other Climbers around him. He was trying to focus on one objective: killing.
He didn't want to fight, instead, he was content with killing as many of the abominations as possible. If his Reward required him to kill, then he would kill without discrimination.
'Woah! That felt a little bit too murderous. I'm going to hunt monsters, more like.' Something about his previous way of thinking just felt far too bloodlusted for his taste. Maybe it was the lingering animosity he felt for Furfur slipping out in the face of an army of his brethren.
Whatever the reason, once the stone platform connected with the ground, he and the other occupants dashed off of it.
At breakneck pace, with Worthy moving the slowest, they entered the fray and joined the clash against the abominations.
Once he got into range of the fighting, he withdrew his weapon from his backpack. The crimson blade was shimmering, something that could have been a source of light in the darkness, if there were any real darkness in the open world. Hungry for blood, the dagger pulsated, even though it was almost fully fed.
Almost was not enough—the dagger sought more.
The child wasn't going to leave his blood-thirsty tool to starve.
Slipping into the defensive line, which was slowly converging on offense thanks to the involvement of the Knights. As he reached the line, he witnessed the horrible brutality of the clash in person.
There were chunks of flesh flying through the air, causing blood to rain, trailing behind every dismembered piece of organic matter that the abominations had.
Sometimes, the bones reinforcing the bodies of the abominations would explode outward when hit, shredding the bodies of those behind them and causing the mass to flop to the ground unresponsive. Yet, that wasn't nearly as harrowing as the amalgamations crawling over their fallen kin and absorbing them, adding them to their personal power.
It was no wonder the defending army couldn't hold off the wave before, their enemies were practically immortal.
Killing one beast would just leave it to feed another, and the other that was fed would inevitably grow stronger. Subsequent battles would prove too difficult for them overtime, as the fighters became more exhausted by the second. Without the support of War's ability that uplifted spirits, the morale was destined to dwindle too.
Knights could fulfill all of those roles with their presence alone. Anyone behind one was safe from death, and the might they wielded was enough to ensure no beast picked up where their kin left off.
Slipping underneath one of the Climbers unleashing a network of greenery from his fingertips, Worthy clenched his hand around the handle of his weapon. His eyes scanned around quickly, identifying the closest target to him.
Goodness were they close.
It was like running towards a wall of carnage.
Worthy swung the weapon blindly in front of himself, and the weapon cut into the nearest abomination. The weapon first severed any network of arteries in the abomination's body, then broke the bone protection that was futile in the face of it, and then finally came out the other side to leave the creature dead.
Blood should have sputtered from the slash as the beast fell motionless to the ground, but it was all soaked up by the blood-consuming weapon of his.
In the next moment, as the strength of the group moved ahead and pushed past him, having no reason to delay for one fighter that was no different than any other… he felt off.
Something that he'd been without his entire life was suddenly forced upon him, and it was so overwhelming it made him stagger and take a knee.
Briefly, men and women looked at him before turning their attention back to the violence. They were not concerned about his well-being, but instead in fear that something had unleashed an invisible attack or sought to invade their minds.
There was not a demon of thought invading the boy's mind at that moment.
Instead, the overwhelming abundance of nutrients that came with the abomination of flesh, that had no doubt consumed countless of its brethren over an uncountable number of years, coursed through his body.
On the ground, rather than remaining where it was, the flesh abomination showed signs of withering. Black smoke rose from its body, as if it had been burned, and slowly every part of the abomination, including its bones, flowed into the air and surrounded Worthy.
The smoke flowed through his nose and eyes and mouth; and none of it seemed to blind him or bring him any discomfort.
As a matter of fact, when the foreign sensation had completed its rounds through the boy's body, he felt an unfamiliar sense of clarity.
He felt… healthier. Healthy in a way that a few good meals in the Tower couldn't replace. Although he had no recollection of where he'd eaten, he knew he had. Thus, the boy knew that he'd just received the boon of a hundred well-fed meals.
His body felt energized in a way it never had, contradictory to how one expected a malnourished, poor boy from the ghetto to have.
'This… It's amazing! I feel like I just ate the best meal of my life without eating a damn thing! A buffet, I'd say!'
Moreover, his Reward had not just helped his body in becoming more invigorated.
The child's mind felt more vast, as if it could accommodate far more space. His understanding of his surroundings grew subtly, making him aware of details he couldn't have noticed before. He spotted a mole on the face of a man that was moving at a pace he usually couldn't keep track of. Far away, he noticed the way a woman angled an arrow wrong when drawing the string of her bow back. Further away than that, he saw a Knight briefly become overwhelmed by an approach of behemoths. By the end, the Knight performed some kind of movement with his fingertips, creating a sigil that erupted the bodies of the towering beasts in an instant.
'The… The Divine Ichor!' Worthy deduced the origin of his newfound vitality. It was the blood of the Lord of Hope, which was marginally dispersed throughout the bodies of all the abominations across the Floor.
The Blood Marauder consumed the divine blood and used it, as well as the vast might of a dead world, to become a deity. That blood, for those who had a means of properly consuming it, must have been recognized as nutrients.
Worthy doubted people could consume the abominations for food. Primarily, because they were horrid and nobody had the need to eat in the first place. Anything they did eat was made by humans, and therefore more appealing than cannibalizing ungodly coagulations of horror. But, also because consuming the beasts directly would infect a person with the remnants of divine blood in the bodies of the beasts—plus any other horrendous, poisonous condition the Blood Marauder's body possessed after consuming every being in his world.
That made Worthy the only person on the Floor who could properly consume the divine ichor, at least with a layer of safety provided through the fact he was not directly ingesting it. Instead, he was receiving a mystical blessing… and by killing them, he'd also nullified the divine blood that kept them functioning.
'...There's no way…'
Thus, Worthy realized he'd received an effective way of permanently killing the beasts. Because he'd also uncovered the mystery of how the Blood Marauder was keeping these terrors alive. The Divine Blood in their bodies were keeping them going.
He didn't know where it went after they died ordinarily, and he didn't care. Because now, when he killed something, it could not be returned to the Blood Marauder.
Instead, he would steal the ichor away and leave the accursed deity empty by just a small droplet, but that droplet was also enough to empower him beyond his wildest images.
'Klepto… Hell, I really am a thief!' Rising to his feet and darting ahead at a pace that almost left him overwhelmed, if not for his newly heightened sense of mind, the child set out to kill more. The more he killed, the more energy he received. The more energy he received, the more he could kill.
Most of all, more important than anything else—each kill made the little thief stronger.