Holy Blood 3

Hey Guys! Enjoying your weekend? Feel free to let me know what you think so far. The premise is going to be tweaked a bit soon, but its not a big change. 

Chapter 3

Hui POV~~~~~

When I was only fifteenth person I ran out of Astral energy. I wasn’t worried as I could tell that it was refilling only it took quite a while. I was sure there was a way to speed it up but at level one I didn’t have access to it. I sat back on the pew as I took a breath.

“I need a break while my Astral energy recharges. Please let everyone know that I’ll get to them in a bit,” I said to Lucy. 

She nodded then ran out of the room I had commandeered after the fifth person. I wasn’t used to that many people all staring at me. Especially not with those hopeful expressions. I leaned back and cracked my neck. I wasn’t sure how it worked but I felt comfortable leaning back on my wings. I thought it would have hurt. 

I watched my Astral energy return slowly and wondered if I could meditate or something to get it back quicker. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose so I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the world around me. I concentrated on the energy that always leaves my body when I used my ability and found I was actually able to sense it. 

There was a stream right next to my nose, so I breathed in, imagining it flowing into my body. It responded and for a brief moment I felt elation at the success before I felt an extreme pain in my chest, and I leaned forward to cough. I covered my mouth and found I had coughed up blood. Lucy walked into the room and saw me. 

“Abaddon! Are you alright?!” Lucy said worriedly. 

“Fine. I just tried to pull in some Astral energy so I could help the people quicker,” I said waving her off. 

“Ah! You are a Displaced. You won’t know not to pull in ambient Astral energy,” Lucy said rubbing my back as I started coughing again. 

“Surely there is a faster way to recover astral energy,” I said, disappointed. 

“There are but for a priest you have to select a deity to follow then pray to them,” she explained. 

“If I wait passively it will take around an hour to completely recover. So we might as well go for a tour,” I said, standing up. 

Lucy lead me to a large room that had a dozen different statues each in their own enclave. The gods and goddesses of this world. I examined the first statue which was of a large man that looked like he had seen the world. 

“That is Leux, King of the Gods and Ruler of Asoresa. The most powerful of the gods,” Lucy explained as she looked up at the wizened man. 

“Interesting. I wonder which one I should choose…” I murmured to myself. 

“That would be up to you,” Lucy said, “I’ll leave for now.”

I went through the Pantheon, looking at the description of all the Gods and Goddesses. It looked like the creator of this world ripped off the Greek Pantheon. At least they changed the names. Leux was clearly modeled after Zeus. The Goddess named Sera was based from Hera. 

Looking through all the different Gods and Goddess I finally choose Otris. She was basically this world’s version of Ares. The others were just too touchy feely for me personally. This Goddess would also fit in with the motif of my new body. I wasn’t sure how it would affect my character as a priest, but I would find out. 

Select Otris as your Deity? This choice is very difficult to change. Y/N

I choose yes, then the world went dark around me. Another ancient looking building much like the one I was just in appeared around me. In front of me was a giant throne with a beautiful woman. While she was easily twenty meters tall it didn’t nothing to subtract from her beauty. She had the form of a human woman, with long hair colored red. She wore a set of armor that was closer to a bikini then anything protective, but something told me it would take something close to a nuke to get through it. 

Behind the throne and all along the walls of the giant room were enough weapons and armor to outfit an army, the enemy’s army, and maybe another army or two after that. Weapons ranging from a rust covered sword to a glowing sword that looked like it should be in a legend. I couldn’t help but gape at the number of weapons. 

“Child, You… you wish to worship me?” the goddess asked clearly surprised.

“Is this odd?” I asked. 

“The world you come from is slipping into madness. With each passing day we lose more and more followers. Lose more and more of our ability to assist the mortals on the Lower world,” Otris said sadly. 

“That’s unfortunate, but there is little that I can do to help,” I said flatly. 

“Yes, there is little one man could do to make a change,” Otris shook her head.

“Besides I am more of a prisoner in this world. Not sure I really want to make an effort to fix it,” I said. 

“If the remaining cities fall then the Displaced will die with the rest of Lower World… permanently,” Otris said in a much more menacing voice than so far. 

“I see. I guess I’ll think about seeing what I can do, but everyone here with me is a criminal with each worse than the next,” I chuckled. 

“That’s fine. You need much greater strength before you’ll be any use in battle anyways,” Otris said, looking me over with a critical eye. 

“Well… For now, I declare myself your follower I guess,” I said, bowing my head.

A blood red mist swirled around the goddess and before I could blink her giant form vanished. She reappeared in front of me, with blood red wings much like mine, only they were actually made out of blood. She had shrunk to the size of just around my chest. She floated in the air front of me. Even in this smaller form she was still a beauty to look upon, though with a cuter quality. 

“I give you my blessing,” she said with an ethereal voice. 

My body froze as she reached forward placing her hands on either side of my face. My eyes were locked on her approaching figure as she moved her lips towards mine. I couldn’t help it when my heart started beating faster as I had never gotten this intimate with a girl before. Before I could think much further on that notion, she locked her lips with mine in a deep kiss I had only seen on television. 

As her breath mixed with mine, I felt a surge of energy flood into me. It felt like all of the Goddess’s thoughts and emotions flowed through me. They went far too fast for me to check any of them, but I vaguely caught the feeling of relief and hope. I wasn’t sure how long she held the kiss, but she finally released me. As she pulled back, she licked her lips. 

“You tasted so good, I couldn’t resist,” Otris grinned. 

“Thank you for the treat,” I smiled back. 

“I like you. Go with my blessing. I’ll be watching,” Otris said as the world faded around me. 

I opened my eyes and found I was back in the Pantheon room. The feeling of Otris lips still lingered. I rubbed my lips but could only smile. I lost my first kiss after I died. It was funny how life worked out sometimes. 

Divinity of Otris: The Goddess of Blood has blessed you. Offerings of blood can be used to regenerate Astral energy. (Boon)

Skill: Fallen Blood, as your Life points fall the effectiveness of your skills increase. (Passive)

These would be tremendous help in the future. Otris was the very correct choice for me with my current situation. I had more things I needed to test but I could test both of these right now. I bowed my head to the Goddess’s statue then left the Pantheon hall. Outside the door, Lucy stood waiting for me. 

She looked at me as I exited then covered her mouth as she gasped, “You chose Otris!” 

“Yes. How did you know?” I asked curious. 

“The Goddess marked you as one of her own,” she answered, pointing to my forehead. 

There was an empty metal tray on a nearby table. I whipped the dust off and looked at my reflection. My face was the same, but there was a symbol on my forehead. It looked like a drop of blood with a crescent through it. I grinned when I saw it but shook my head. 

“Yep. Is it going to be a problem?” I asked. 

“Well… Her priests have done some… questionable things in the past to offer her blood,” Lucy grimaced. 

“From what I saw outside, the city can’t afford to let me make the streets run red with its people’s blood so for now I think everyone’s safe,” I said patting her shoulder. 

We made our way back to the room where I was healing people. I still needed to regenerate my astral energy though so the people would have to wait some more. I asked Lucy to bring me a clean bowl and a dagger. She left and returned before I could make myself comfortable. 

“What do you plan on doing?” Lucy asked. 

“Just some things,” I said vaguely. 

I placed the bowl down on the table in front of me. I held my left hand over the bowl then used my right to slice the dagger over my palm. I expected it but this world’s pain level was the same as the real world. Blood flowed freely from the wound making a nice pool in the bowl. I glanced at my LP and it was steadily falling. I found moving my hand irritated the wound similar to real life and kept it from closing. After ten seconds, in a mysterious fashion the wound healed instantly. 

The bowl was only a third full, so I ended up cutting my palm two more times. The first two times the wound healed without leaving a mark but the third felt a faint line. I rubbed my hand the echo of the pain slowly fading. After the pain completely faded, I turned to the bowl full of my own blood. Glancing at my LP I saw that it was nearly at half. 

“Otris. I offer my blood to you!” I said in a priestly voice. 

I vaguely heard a snicker in the back of my head before a wave of Astral energy flooded into me. My Astral energy that was near the bottom shot up like a rocket. It went up faster than I anticipated so I wasn’t able to get a grasp on the amount of LP to AP. At least my AP was full from less than half my LP. 

“Bring the next person in,” I called to Lucy.

“Alright!” Lucy called back. 

A moment later she led a middle-aged woman in. The woman saw the mark on my forehead and panicked for a moment. I made calming gestures and she crept forward carefully. I used my Holy Light skill and was surprised when I saw the color was slightly tinted red. I didn’t let it bother me and continued channeling the spell. 

Fallen Blood showed its usefulness instantly. I was able to recover the woman’s LP much faster than before without it. Otris earned a few more points in my head at that moment. 

“Lucy. How many more people are there?” I asked, wanting to do the math. 

“About that… some of the ones you healed spread the word that you were healing so the number of people keep increasing,” Lucy said, wringing her hands.

“How many?” I asked again. 

“At my last count. There was a hundred and twenty-five,” Lucy said, looking at the floor. 

I quickly did the math and got a few hours. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

~~~

A few hours later

I whipped the sweat from my forehead as I finished healing the last person. I needed to sleep, but I wanted to finish the quest. I told Lucy to tell the people that unless they were seriously injured, they were to come back tomorrow. It worked for the most part, but there were still a few that showed up every few minutes.

The long hours of healing made me realize why the EXP rewarded was so high. It factored in all the new arrivals that would show up. The fact that all these people were AIs also blew me away. I really couldn’t tell them apart from regular people. 

You have healed a church full of injured and ill. EXP +2000 Copper Coins +2 EXP based on fullness of people healed. Bonus EXP +2000

I felt energy surge through me several times as I leveled. This had to be the easiest quest in the game. All the healed people bowed as they left the church. They were all thanking me for saving their lives. I just nodded and waved them on as I was tired. They didn’t seem to be upset about it and the crowd gradually dispersed. I yawned and pulled my status screen. 

Name: Abaddon

Race: Angel: As an angel you will be unable to initiate combat with intelligent life. Self-defense is only allowed after a certain threshold. 

Class: Priest (The linchpin to any party. Unable to initiate combat with intelligent life)

Skills: Holy Light (Damage or Heal dependent on target)

Sanctuary (Area of Effect. Places a barrier around a location that heals or does holy damage to occupants)

Prayer of Strength Blood (Increases the stats of those around the Priest that have given blood to the Goddess Otris. 

Fallen Blood (As your Life points fall the effectiveness of your skills increase.) (Passive)

Level: 9

LP: 1900 AP:1900

Curses: 

Boons: Divinity of Otris

EXP: 12,645/13,245

My status was definitely higher. I liked how my LP and AP had almost doubled it looked like I got an extra hundred points per level. Simple and easy. The new skills were interesting, and I was wondering how it would play into my restriction on not attacking first. Those were problems for tomorrow’s me. 

“Lucy, is there any place that I could sleep?” I yawned.

“This way Abaddon,” Lucy nodded. 

She led we through the church to a room that was actually in decent condition. I looked around but nothing really stood out other than it was clean. She bowed her head then made her way out. 

“Lucy, who’s room is this?” I asked. 

“The… The last priest’s,” she murmured. 

I gazed at her for a moment but nodded. She backed out of the room and I took my robe off. I was glad to see underclothes much like a tunic. I was about to toss the robe to the side on a dresser but remembered that some games made items disappear after a while. I thought for a moment then remembered that games like this tend to have an inventory. 

It took me nearly another five minutes before I was able to access it. I stored my robe and staff inside then closed the semi-transparent screen. I flopped down on the bed, it almost felt worse than my cot back in the prison. I yawned then slowly drifted to sleep, thinking about what to do next.