“Told you,” Bella smirked as I moved on to the next spear.

There were four more spears, but I was rejected by all of them until the final spear, which I thought I actually had a chance with.

It gave me a bit of trouble as the long blue spear squirmed in my hand, trying to get out of my grasp but not as desperately as the others.

This one I could actually hold a tight grip around… until it suddenly let out a blast of whitish-blue aura that sent me flying into the several barrels behind me.

Some of the sharpened weapons cut me up, but I was mostly fine as the pain wasn’t any worse than the prick of a needle.

“God damn… Okay, well, do you have any other spears?” I asked.

“We do… but I doubt you’ll be able to tame it. It has the highest intelligence out of all of these and can even talk to you if it thinks you’re slightly worthy of its power,”

“So it’s an arrogant spear, correct?”

“I guess you could call it that, but I recommend not using it. Most of the time, the people who try to conquer the spear end up shriveling up into a prune and dying almost instantly. It was as if their soul had been sucked out of their flesh,”

“I still want to try it,” I muttered, and Bella looked a bit torn.

“Sorry, but I still won’t show it to you. I won’t be losing my benefactor so easily and so quickly… I hate to say it, but you might be our last hope. The other strategists had either left the city or went to the family with the highest pay,”

“Then why didn’t you pay them tons of money?”

“Well… We spent it all on these spears,” Bella muttered, and my face deadpanned.

“Seriously?”

“Ye… seriously,”

“Oh my **ing god… I’ve made a contract with a bunch of idiots… *sigh*… I still want to try and tame the spear, though. The quickest way to get stronger is just to get a stronger weapon, so please, lead the way,”

Bella, still torn, thought it over for a few seconds and her thinking expression was pretty funny, so I chuckled a bit before trying something out of the surveillance of this girl.

Tangible Bloodlust

Large strands of bloodlust erupted from my body, and I then proceeded to shoot them into the spears before trying to grab them again.

It was a strange sensation, feeling the bloodlust intertwining with the almost fleshy insides of the spears.

But, when I tightened my grip, the spear began to fight back with its own aura, and it seemed a bit enraged as well, so eventually, I was sent flying back again.

“What the ** are you doing?” Bella asked as she helped me up.

“Testing something out. Anyway, it seems you’ve reached your answer, so let’s get going,” I said while walking towards yet another metal door but with a massive lock attached to it.

The door practically screamed something special was in here, and my suspicions were confirmed when I grazed my hand against the metal.

A chill was shot down my spine, and my legs became noodles almost instantly.

“Psh… I never even got to say anything,” Bella muttered before placing her hands on the massive lock and gritting her teeth.

Blood suddenly poured from her eyes as she chanted in an unknown language.

“*gasp*… HUFF HUFF HUFF HUFF… Fuck, that was hard,” Bella muttered as I returned the favor from before and helped her up.

As she caught her breath, I slowly watched the metal doors open inwards, revealing a single weapon bound with chains so strong they could even hold a falling mountain.

“Is that… it?” I asked Bella while we both peered from the outside of the dark and musty room, coated in layers of dust that wafted towards us with single waves of wind.

“Yes… Okay, I can’t enter with you for the sake of my own safety. If you’re dying, I’m not dying with you,” Bella muttered without a single shred of remorse, but I guess it made sense, so I just shrugged it off.

“Can I ask you something before I enter?” I suddenly spoke up just as I was about to take a step into the darkroom.

“What is it?” Bella responded quietly, like she was a mouse quivering in the corner of my room.

“You seemed pretty scared of me back then. Y’know, in the Meeting of Roses… did something happen, or am I just not scary anymore?”

“It’s not you that I’m afraid of, but that **ing smile you always make when everything starts to fall into your web,”

“Fufufufu… Well, don’t worry. I don’t do it much because it’s a subconscious reaction. Yes, I can mimic it to induce fear, but it doesn’t have the same effect,”

“I didn’t need to know that… anyway, why are you stalling? You’re the one who said you wanted to see it, even when I tried to stop you!” Bella shouted.

“I-I’m not stalling,”

Slowly, I stepped into the room, and I quickly noticed my sense of hearing had disappeared into thin air.

Even my heavy breathing was something that I couldn’t even catch a whiff of.

Then, as I stepped farther into the room, approaching the large black and red spear, I lost my sense of taste.

The musty and bitter air that I had been inhaling suddenly disappeared in just a quick moment.

Each step was like hell, like I was walking in a pit of flames, with my other senses being heightened due to my previously lost ones.

Then, I lost my sense of smell, which I was a bit thankful for as the disgusting air that I kept intaking almost made me want to throw up.

My sense of sight then left me, but I already had a clear image of where the spear was in my mind… so I stretched my arm out, extended my fingers, and then…

Tangible Bloodlust Cloak of Blood Empower

“You mother**er…” I heard a voice ring through my head, and all of a sudden, my sense of touch disappeared, leaving me in a senseless black void.