Bloodstar System: Infinite Evolution Through Beast Slaughter

Chapter 2: Killing the Brutebull!

The flesh on Brann’s face twitched.

He dug a finger into his ear, half convinced he had heard wrong.

"What did you say?"

The workers around them stopped laughing. One by one, they looked at Joren as if he had lost his mind.

"I said I want to slaughter Voidbeasts."

Joren repeated it without raising his voice, yet every word carried clearly across the noisy factory floor.

This time, everyone heard him.

A brief pause.

Then the laughter came back even louder.

"Hahaha! This kid is crazy!"

"Does he even know what he is saying?"

"His brain must have been ruined by the smell. Shame about that pretty face."

Brann’s amusement faded into irritation.

"Do I look like I am joking with you?"

His voice sank, carrying a warning now.

Accidents happened in the slaughterhouse every day.

The Voidbeasts here were all Feralborn raised by humans specifically for slaughter, but the wildness and bloodlust in their blood could not be bred out completely.

Plenty of workers had been gored through the stomach by a dying Voidbeast. Plenty more had lost arms to bone saws after one final struggle went wrong.

Brann had already shown mercy by offering Joren a safer job.

"Brann, I came from a martial high school."

Martial high school?

The laughter around them cut off.

The workers’ eyes changed.

The mockery and disdain retreated, replaced by scrutiny and doubt.

In Norcrest, everyone knew what a martial high school meant.

It was a cradle for Martial Prodigies. Anyone who walked out of a place like that, even as an ordinary graduate, was far beyond laborers like them who made a living with their bodies.

Brann paused as well.

He looked Joren over again, this time with sharper eyes.

"A martial high school student came here to work?"

"I dropped out."

Joren answered cleanly, without the slightest embarrassment.

Dropped out?

The workers stirred again.

A martial high school was a place countless people would fight to enter, yet someone had actually dropped out?

Brann was quiet for a moment.

Everyone had a past.

He did too.

Whatever had happened, it was probably not something pleasant.

So he did not ask.

"Fine."

A low grunt sounded in Brann’s throat.

He slid the boning knife back into the sheath at his waist with a clang.

Then he turned, his heavy boots splashing through the blood on the floor as he strode toward another area of the factory.

"Follow me."

Joren said nothing and followed.

The other workers exchanged glances.

They stepped aside to make a path, but their eyes stayed stuck to him.

Joren changed into waterproof rubber clothing.

Brann stopped in front of a metal enclosure.

Inside, a creature lay on the ground, twitching.

Its body was covered in short black bristles as hard as wire. Two thick horns curved upward from its head, gleaming with a metallic sheen.

Even unconscious and convulsing, it still breathed out hot white vapor from its nostrils.

"This thing is called a Brutebull. Feralborn."

Brann’s voice came from beside him.

"It was knocked out by thirty thousand volts. Not dead. Could wake up at any time."

He jerked his chin toward the Brutebull’s thick neck.

"Your job is to bleed it, skin it, then break it down."

"Remember this. Put the blade between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae. That is the weakest spot. One cut through the throat."

"If the blood does not drain clean, the meat is ruined. If you are too slow and it wakes up, you are ruined."

Brann said it as if he were explaining the weather.

He took a strange short blade from a row of tools hanging on the wall. The body of the blade was heavy, but the edge was thin.

"Catch."

Without turning his head, he tossed it back.

The short blade spun through the air in a smooth arc.

He wanted to test how much real skill this young man from the martial exam actually had.

A few workers nearby let out low cries.

Joren did not even lift his eyelids. He only raised a hand.

Smack.

His fingers closed steadily around the handle. With a slight turn of his wrist, he absorbed the force behind the throw.

The motion was smooth, clean, without a wasted beat.

Joren had trained at a martial high school. Though he had not yet become a Rank One Warrior, his blade technique and physique were still beyond ordinary people.

Catching Brann’s knife was no problem.

Brann turned his head.

His pupils tightened.

He saw the way Joren held the blade.

It was the grip of someone who had used knives for years. The web of the thumb locked firmly around the handle, index finger resting along the spine of the blade, steady and strong.

This kid has something.

"Go."

Joren did not answer.

Holding the blade, he walked over and opened the latch on the metal enclosure.

"Damn, he is really going in?"

"Is he insane? That is a Brutebull. If it goes berserk, it can punch through a wall."

The workers in the distance began whispering again, every eye fixed on Joren.

Joren ignored them.

He stepped into the enclosure and shut the gate behind him.

A stench mixed with scorched flesh and thick animal musk rushed at his face. It was sharper than the smell of blood outside.

He walked to the Brutebull’s side and crouched.

Then he placed a hand on its thick neck, feeling the hot temperature under the hide and the faint tremor of muscle beneath his palm.

He closed his eyes.

Brann’s words surfaced in his mind.

Between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae.

Here.

His wrist turned. The blade angled downward.

Pshk.

The heavy blade sank into the gap between the vertebrae without resistance.

Fast.

Accurate.

Ruthless.

Joren did not pause. The hand gripping the handle yanked sideways.

A wound deep enough to reveal bone opened across the neck.

"Moo!"

The Brutebull released its final, piercing cry.

The hot blood did not spray. It poured from the huge wound like a floodgate had been opened, instantly staining the floor red.

The Brutebull’s massive body twitched violently several times. The light in its beast eyes scattered, then went out completely.

[Ding!]

[Feralborn Brutebull killed successfully!]

[Bloodstars gained: 0.5 points.]

The system notification rang in his mind.

Joren slowly rose and pulled the short blade out of the Brutebull’s neck.

Blood ran along the tip and dripped onto the ground, bursting into tiny red flowers.

The factory floor was so quiet that a falling needle would have sounded loud.

Everyone stared at the boy standing beside the Brutebull’s corpse, soaked in blood from head to toe.

No one moved.

Only the faint sizzle of the high voltage grid remained.

Gulp.

Someone swallowed with difficulty.

The sound carried clearly through the wide factory.

Every worker stood frozen in place, their eyes fixed on the blood covered boy.

The same boy they had mocked a moment ago as a pretty little weakling.

"Did I see that right?"

A worker rubbed his eyes.

"That was cleaner than Brann’s work. Why did it feel like he had done it countless times?"

"Maybe he has killed Voidbeasts before. Or killed people."

The whispers spread like sparks catching dry grass.

This time, no one laughed.

There was no mockery left in their voices.

Only a heavy, suffocating sense of awe.

Joren paid no attention to any of it.

He had never killed a Voidbeast.

He certainly had never killed a person.

Only his Bladecraft had been practiced again and again at martial high school.

He slowly turned.

A pale blue, translucent status panel hung quietly in his mind.

[Host: Joren]

[Mental Force: 10]

[Combat Rank: Mortal]

[Bloodstars: 0.5]

[Combat Arts: Basic Bladecraft 5/5; Basic Body Tempering 3/8]

[Talent: Bladehand White]