Blood Assimilation

Even if they could see through the stealth skill, since its level was still at 1, as long as they did not discover his aura approaching, he could instantly sneak up on anyone before they would even notice him.

At this very moment, Randy was truly confident about both his presence concealment and camouflaged state.

Without any further deliberation, he headed in the direction of the village while still maintaining his vigilance just in case. He planned on observing the actions of those two people first before making any decision.

However, as he approached the two cloaked individuals, one of them suddenly turned around without warning and then looked in a specific direction, shocking Randy greatly.

That was simply because that individual was, at this moment, looking at where he was hiding currently, which was behind a giant rock that he had found close to the village.

‘Impossible! Did they notice my presence?’

Randy did not have to guess long, as he heard a voice.

“Stop hiding like a rat and come out!” A deep and hoarse voice, which sounded very disgruntled, resonated in the surroundings.

.....

Upon hearing this, Randy hesitated for a brief moment before standing up, dispelling his absolute stealth skill, and then walked out from behind the rock in leisure steps.

He curiously questioned: “How did you find my location?”

“You... What? A human?” One of the cloaked individuals spoke impatiently but then looked slightly shocked.

Meanwhile, the other demon seemed uninterested at first as he continued to head towards the village, most likely because they had made prior arrangements when they found him.

However, he was startled when he heard his partner’s words and turned around, asking.

“What did you say? A human?”

“That’s right.”

“How did they know that we were coming here? No matter, there’s only one of them. We can easily kill him off and deal with our matters afterward.”

“...Hm. You’re right. No matter how strong he is, he would still die to our combination attack. However...”

“What are you talking about? Isn’t that a weakling? I can’t even sense anything coming out of him.”

“You idiot, did I not tell you that someone was following us just now? How did you think I found him, but you couldn’t?”

“What? You don’t mean...”

“That’s right, that human knows how to hide his presence almost completely, most likely also his true strength. However, unfortunately for him, my unique ability to sense ‘possible threat’ was one of the best.”

“Alright, then let’s deal with him quickly. We can’t afford to waste any more time here.”

“Hm.”

Saying so, they both disappeared, and before Randy knew it, he had been surrounded by the two individuals on both the front and back.

At the same time, their appearance, which was under the hood of their cloaks, was then revealed.

‘Are these... demons? What are they doing here? Don’t tell me they had some motive for coming to this place?’ Randy raised his brows as he guessed.

But he was only momentarily surprised before activating and unleashing the effect of his Shadow Beast Leather Armor. His body emanated with shadow mana, which consumed his entire existence a short moment later.

...

A few moments ago, while the demons were busy having their little discussion, Randy did not simply stand there and watch them while doing nothing.

Instead, countless thoughts and strategies on how to defeat his current opponents scrolled through his mind within a short moment thanks to his increased mental energy.

Amid those thoughts, he thought of a few methods for defeating these unknown opponents.

One such method was his Shadow Beast Leather Armor’s property, which he had only checked after the dungeon raid.

The other method was his newly created incarnation, which he had yet to test out due to some complications, thus stored within his spatial ring for now.

In the end, he decided to try out his Shadow Beast Leather Armor’s property effects.

[Shadow Beast Leather Armor]

[Rank: Legendary]

[Armor Property(s): Shadow Null (Passive Defense), Shadow Shroud (Active Protection), Shadow Swap (Active Evasion), Shadow Restoration (Self-Repair)]

[Description: This armor has the property ability to negate elemental attribute attacks passively and actively, except for light attribute attacks. It can also use the user’s mana to solidify shadows around the armor to protect against any physical damage attacks. It even has a self-repair ability through absorbing shadow aura or dark mana]

...

A moment later, he instantly disappeared, replaced by a shadow, which was sliced and pierced through by the two demons.

The next moment, one of the demons was pierced through the chest from their back to the chest.

“What?!” One of the demons widened their eyes in shock when they felt a sharp pain penetrating their back.

When the two demons disappeared, he silently activated one of the Shadow Beast Leather Armor’s properties- Shadow Swap Property, which he used to evade the two demons’ combination attacks.

[Shadow Swap: This property allows the user to instantly create a clone shadow that could replace the user’s body to evade deadly attacks. In the process, the form of the user would be hidden temporarily in the void and then swiftly teleported randomly to a certain safe distance away from the battlefield. The interval of the teleportation is dependent on the amount of mana used]

Naturally, based on the description alone, this armor property’s effect didn’t have directional teleportation.

However, by using less mana during activation, you could limit the teleportation to a short distance away from the battlefield enough to counterattack against your enemy afterward if you were lucky enough with the teleported distance.

That way what Randy had done when he activated this armor property’s ability.

Originally, this armor property’s ability was supposed to be the last stand against an unbeatable enemy due to the nature of teleporting randomly to a safe distance from the battlefield.

But in this case, Randy creatively used it to evade a deadly attack from his enemy, and at the same time, counterattacked against them.

Although the two demons were shocked one after another when they saw his figure’s sudden disappearance and then appeared behind one of them to launch an attack, they did not seem shocked for long.

One of the demons had a calm expression, with two black horns on top of his head, pale white-skinned, and eerie dark purple eyes that seemed to see through everything.

The other demon had fiery crimson eyes with a hint of darkness inside his two pupils. He also has red scales all over his body with a fierce expression as invisible heat emitted from his body, which induced the surrounding air to blur in response to the high temperature.

Other than these features, they all had a humanoid appearance.

The one with the red scale was the one that was pierced through by Randy’s sword attack since he seemed to be more careless than the other demon.

As for the temperature, Randy only covered his hand with arm and sword with his Frost Hand Spell Technique that he acquired from Riley’s Magic Compendium, coupled with his Energy Manifestation skill, which he used to solidify the ice around his sword. His hand, especially, was covered to look like a glove.

However, the next moment, the pierced, red-scaled demon turned his head around with a wide smirk on his scaled face.

Immediately after, Randy felt a burning sensation in his palm. The weapon he was holding was emitting a burning sensation despite the ice glove around his hand.

In reality, the moment he launched his attack, the ice around his arm had already melted away, with only the ice glove on which he concentrated his mana persisted until now.

Right away, he instinctively let go of his sword and made the distance between them.

As Randy watched on, the spare steel sword he had used to pierce the red-scaled demon melted in liquid. It was then thoroughly absorbed inside the red-scaled demon’s body.

Within that moment, Randy pondered many things to himself.

‘No wonder he so was careless. It wasn’t that this demon was reckless. With such searing and suffocating heat emitted from his body, naturally, it would be careless and unguarded against my weapon attack, unlike the other demon who seemed on guard the entire time.’

‘This guy didn’t even care about the wound from my weapon attack. But then again, is that all?’

According to his guess, this demon most likely had an innate ability to absorb metal to heal himself. Otherwise, it shouldn’t have been unscathed after his attack.

The next moment, the red-scaled demon momentarily burst out with a peal of condescending laughter and said: “Not bad for a mere human. But if that was all you got, then prepare to die.”

After stating so, the red-scaled demon charged at Randy without giving him a chance to activate his armor’s property and could only rely on his movement skills and technique to dodge its clawed attacks.

However, for some reason, the black-horned demon, on the other hand, just stood aside.

He did not bother to fight together with the red-scaled demon and only proceeded to observe their fight instead.

Randy clashed with the red-scaled demon tens of times within a few seconds.

At this point, Randy had slash marks on his face from some of the red-scaled demon’s attacks.

Although they seemed evenly matched in terms of physical strength, he still couldn’t keep up with its relentless attacks that prevented him from using his skills.

Randy had thought that after he underwent his body evolution, he wouldn’t lose to that vampire man he met the other day. Furthermore, he was even confident that he could instantly kill him.

He believed that since he now had more control over his skills and body, unlike before, that much should be possible.

Not to mention that, although he had yet to check it, his overall strength, whether it be his physical strength or speed, they had all increased drastically.