Sound slipped between the trees and dissolved. No echo.
A translucent interface unfolded in front of him, hanging in the air with restrained clarity.
-------------------------------------------------------------
STATUS
Level: 1 XP: 0 / 150
Health: 204 / 204
Mana: 128 / 128
Stamina: 145 / 145
Blood Reserve: 0 / 100
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 12
Endurance: 10
Perception: 11
Vitality: 12
Starting items: Light leather armor, common dagger.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The numbers faded.
Kieran rolled his shoulders and let his awareness settle deeper into the new body. Movements felt tight and clean. No drag. No wasted effort.
"Good," he murmured.
Leaves shifted overhead without a whisper. Insects clicked in uneven patterns that stopped whenever he focused on them. Somewhere in the distance, something heavy pushed through brush in slow, unhurried motions.
His posture dipped a fraction. Knees softened, center of gravity lowering, hands loose at his sides.
A hollow pressure stirred in his chest. An absence. A space that waited to be filled.
The forest edge gave way to thicker growth as he walked, trunks narrowing the gaps between them. Moonlight stretched in longer bands along the ground, carving lanes of clearer visibility through the dark. Kieran adjusted pace and stride without needing to think about it, every step automatically choosing stable ground.
Faster than I should be. He realized before coming to a stop.
Something pulsed nearby.
It wasn't a sound or anything in sight, but his awareness hooked on it anyway, something steady, heavy, rhythmic.
A heart beat.
His gaze slid toward a tangle of undergrowth to his left. Leaves and shadow hid everything at first glance. When he focused, an outline assembled in his mind: low to the ground, long limbs, weight distributed forward.
The pressure in his chest tightened.
A screen appeared between disappearing after a few seconds.
----------------------
Vampiric Instinct Triggered: Blood Presence Detected
----------------------
"Didn't ask," he said under his breath.
The brush exploded.
Shadewolf — Level 1
Let's see what this new body can do then, shall we? Kieran though with a sense of eagerness.
It lunged, a smear of dark fur and too-long limbs bursting from the cover of leaves. Jaws snapped toward his throat, yellow eyes gleaming with raw, simple intent.
Kieran quickly stepped off to the side of the attack, causing the strike to miss by inches. Air rushed past his neck.
He met the momentum with a clean kick to its ribs. The impact folded the creature sideways. It slammed into a tree trunk hard enough to shake loose fragments of bark and dust. A strangled snarl tore out of its throat.
Kieran stared at his leg for half a heartbeat.
"Right," he muttered. "That's new."
The wolf twisted, recovering faster than its broken movement suggested it should. Limbs bent at angles that scraped against his instincts. It dug its claws into the ground, launched again, and came in lower this time.
Kieran shifted his stance. When the jaws snapped up toward his chest, he dropped his weight, using one arm to block the bite as the dagger appeared in his other hand. In one smooth motion, he dragged the blade up beneath the jaw, cutting deep through fur and flesh. The shadewolf spasmed once, then collapsed, limbs giving up control all at once.
-7 HP
Silence settled back into the clearing, immediate and indifferent.
-----------------------------
ENEMYDEFEATED
XP Gained: 40 / 150
Skill Mastery Increased
Unarmed Combat: Lv. 1 → Lv. 2
• Impact control improved
• Efficiency in close-quarters increased
---------------------------
The faint ache in his forearm faded more quickly than it should have. Breathing adjusted, leveling out without conscious effort.
Kieran flexed his fingers once.
"Worth the bruise," he said.
Blood spread beneath the corpse in a dark, viscous pool. The smell hit him a moment later, more intrusive than any normal iron scent had a right to be. Metallic. Warm. Persistent.
The hollow space in his chest contracted as if something inside had leaned forward.
He crouched, hand hovering over the stain.
This escalated fast.
The interface returned before he touched anything.
--------------------------
SYSTEM NOTICE
Blood Reserve: 0 / 100
Warning: Sustained performance requires blood intake.
Primary Objective Assigned: Feed
---------------------------
"Of course it is." His jaw tightened.
The directive didn't feel moral. It felt biological. A system-level survival requirement woven into muscle and instinct.
The corpse at his feet offered the most convenient answer. Kieran pressed his fingertips into the pooled blood before tasting the blood. The reaction came instantly—heat rushing faintly along his veins, the empty pressure in his chest easing by a fraction.
-------------------------
Blood Consumed: Beast (Low Quality)
Blood Reserve: 0 → 8 / 100
Effect: Minor regeneration support enabled
--------------------------
The taste of the blood was awful, the relief stopped almost as soon as it began. The hollow remained. Sharper now. More aware.
"Picky," he muttered.
Voices drifted in from deeper between the trees.
Three heartbeats. One steady, two uneven. Boots catching on roots. Breathing cut short in little bursts of nervous laughter and swallowed curses.
Kieran went still.
He could turn away. The game had dungeons, starter quests, safe paths. Plenty of ways to move forward without walking toward the nearest source of high-quality blood like a cliché. The pressure in his chest pulsed again. Not a command. A suggestion weighted with physiology.
Messy early, he thought. Fine.
He moved shadow to shadow, pace measured. The forest didn't bend for him, but it stopped arguing. Branches angled just enough to keep him in cover. Leaves masked his footsteps in a soft murmur.
-------------------------------
Skill Mastery Increased
Stealth: Lv. 1 → Lv. 2
• Footfall suppression improved
• Ambient awareness increased
-------------------------------
He dismissed the notification with a thought.
Three players came into view along a narrow game-cut path, their lantern light too bright against the tree line. The youngest of the trio—a man with a longsword too heavy for his stance—kept glancing into the dark like he expected the tutorial to jump out and reassure him.
The woman in the middle moved differently. Older. More controlled. Her shoulders stayed loose, her weight balanced over each step.
He tracked their movement, mirroring them as he closed the distance. Seeing the older woman starting to stray away from the middle he stepped out of cover behind her.
No rustle. No warning. One second there was empty space at her back; the next, his presence filled it.
Her breath stuttered, caught halfway between inhale and exhale. Her heartbeat jumped once, then settled into a harder, faster rhythm.
She didn't scream.
"Don't," Kieran said quietly.
The lantern wobbled. The man tore his sword from its sheath with an undisciplined scrape of metal. Neither closed in. Both stared past the older woman at him, eyes wide, knuckles whitening where they gripped their weapons.
The pressure in his chest spiked.
The woman's pulse hammered against his awareness, clear and bright, drowning out the forest.
His hand settled lightly against her shoulder.
This is a bad idea. He thought as he leaned in.
Her scent hit him first, clean and sharp beneath the sweat and leather and faint chemical tang of starting gear. Her skin warmed under his hand. Every instinct he had—or that the system had built for him—stepped forward in unison.
Take it all, drain her. The instinct appeared like though. His grip tightened.
No.
He angled his head and bit.
Her breath shattered into a quiet gasp. Muscles that had been coiled for a fight loosened all at once. Fear unwound into something unfocused and unguarded. Her knees gave way, and he caught her without thinking, arm circling her waist to keep her upright.
Blood hit like voltage.
Heat surged through him, searing along empty channels and lighting every nerve it touched. Taste and sensation blurred together—vivid, immediate, overwhelming. The hollow in his chest flooded with presence, hunger roaring up in its place, demanding more.
His jaw clenched against the instinct to keep going.
Stop. He forced himself to pull back.
The act felt heavier than lifting a weight. Muscles rebelled. Instinct clawed for one more second, one deeper pull, one cleaner hit. He didn't give it any.
The woman sagged as his fangs withdrew, a soft sound leaving her throat before she went limp. He lowered her carefully, one hand bracing her head until it rested on soft ground. Her heartbeat remained fast, but stable. Breathing shallow, then gradually deeper.
Alive.
Unconscious.
--------------------------
Blood Consumed: Human (Player — Elena, Level 3)
Blood Quality: High
Blood Reserve: 8 → 82 / 100
Temporary Effects Applied:
• Regeneration Enhanced
• Physical Output Increased
• Sensory Acuity Heightened
-----------------------------
Kieran sat back on his heels and drew a slow breath.
"Closer than I would have liked," he said under his breath.
The world snapped back into sharper focus. Individual veins stood out on leaves. The scrape of the man's boot against a rock registered like a shout. The girl's ragged breathing grated along his senses.
The sword was raised now, tip trembling as it pointed at Kieran's chest.
"What did you do to her?" he demanded.
The girl's eyes shone with tears she hadn't noticed yet. "If she dies—"
"She won't," Kieran said.
They flinched at the sound of his voice.
"She should still wake up. Probably annoyed." He met their gazes evenly. "You should probably stay be her side until she does."
She shifted, trying to pull courage together between fear and anger. "You can't just—"
"I already did," he said. "You're welcome she's breathing."
Red reflected faintly in his own vision when their lantern light hit his eyes. The effect worked better than any intimidation skill.
Neither moved closer.
He rose to his feet, checked the woman's pulse one last time, and turned away from all three of them.
He left them there and stepped back into the trees. The blood sang along his veins, every limb lighter than it had been minutes ago. The empty pressure in his chest had retreated to a dull, quiet throb.
I guess it's manageable, he told himself.