Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night
Chapter 192: Temporal Blade

After slaying Zander, a golden gemstone appeared within Elena's inventory. She immediately fetched it so that she could hold on to the item. It was like any other blood crystal, spherical, and cut like a diamond. But it was larger than any of the ones she had seen so far and had a deep golden sheen to it.

As she stared deep into the lustrous hue, Elena felt as if something were calling out to her. Almost as if she could hear voices whispering in her ears, yet the words which the mysterious voices spoke were indecipherable, as if they belonged to a long forgotten language.

It was not until Zane had snapped her out of her trance with his words did Elena finally realize what was going on.

"Elena! Elena, are you alright!?!"

Elena quickly recovered her senses as if she had not just been mindlessly staring at the golden blood crystal intently for fifteen seconds straight, before speaking to Zane, assuring him that everything was alright.

"I'm… I'm fine. I'm sorry I just spaced out for a second there. So, according to our prior agreement… This should go to Olivia, shouldn't it?"

The agreement they had all made was that whoever killed the most undead would be granted the Horde King's blood crystal after the battle was over. Zane being excluded, of course. And the one who had accomplished this was without a shadow of a doubt none other than Olivia, whose chain lightning had obliterated over 10,000 walkers in a single moment.

However, contrary to what Elena was expecting, or anyone else for that matter, Olivia did not accept her prize. Rather, she had a gentle smile on her face while shed grabbed hold of Elena's hand, which contained the highly desired blood crystal and folded it, assuring her that she was the one who deserved it.

"While it is true that I was the one who killed the most undead, it was your sneak attack on the Horde King that saved us a lot of trouble. Though I have little doubt that we would have prevailed if we worked together. None of us needed to suffer any injury thanks to the initiative you took.

And that is a good enough reason for me to let you have the prize this time around. Besides, if even the system granted it to you, then you clearly deserve it. Please, Elena, keep it. I'll get the next one!"

It was apparently not just Olivia who was urging Elena to keep the horde king's blood crystal for herself. But rather, all the other girls nodded their heads in agreement as well. With such support behind her, Elena couldn't very well reject them now, could she?

Even still, Elena ultimately looked towards Zane for approval to take the Blood Crystal for herself. He was, after all, the ultimate authority of their little party, and thus he sighed heavily before patting the girl's silky crimson hair, assuring her it was fine for her to use it.

"Go ahead…"

With his permission granted, Elena responded to Zane's generosity by hugging him and kissing him in a rather excited display of public affection. Despite her eagerness to get right down to business and unlock a new skill, Elean's sense of reason got the better of her.

She did not immediately consume the blood crystal, no matter how much she wanted to. After all, she and the group still needed to get back to some place safe, back to Gravestone so that she could undergo the corruption process without dragging down the rest of the party.

And that was exactly what they did. It was a long journey back to the bunker. But once the party could finally relax, Elena cornered Zane, and asked him, rather bashfully, to accompany her during her tribulation.

Considering Zane had no other plans for the night, he agreed to Elena's plans and followed her back to her room. Where she laid down on the bed and plopped the golden crystal in her mouth, nearly gagging on the exceptionally putrid taste as she swallowed the liquid in its entirety.

No matter how disgusting consuming blood crystals were, or how painful it was for her body to process them. Elean did not hesitate in this gesture. And surely enough, the moment she consumed the blood crystal, a message appeared in Elena's sight, which confirmed that she had acquired a new skill.

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[The Blood Crystal of a Tier I Horde King has been consumed…]

[+1,000 XP]

[Generating New Skill]

---

Immediately after seeing this message, a slot machine like system appeared in front of Elena's blue eyes. It rolled so quickly that she could not even see what the individual skills were that were listed. But in the end, it landed on a single skill, one that complimented the one she already had quite nicely.

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[Congratulations! You have unlocked the skill Temporal Blade!]

[Temporal Blade: Active: Type: Offensive Spell]

[Tier I]

[Rare Skill]

[Cast Time: 5 seconds]

[Cooldown: 90 seconds]

[Damage: 250]

[Description: You have the ability to manifest a blade made out of time itself for the purpose of a single attack, thus bypassing any defenses a normal opponent might have.]

---

Though Elena saw this, she was temporarily crippled by the state of corruption that all awakened survivors must undergo after consuming a blood crystal. Luckily for her, she had only consumed one blood crystal this time, instead of a bunch of them at once, and thus she would only have to endure this painful state for less than half an hour, rather than throughout the entire night.

Because of this, she could not tell Zane what she had gained until after this agony ended. Even still, Zane waited patiently by her side, going so far as to lie down next to Elena, while hugging her from behind, and in doing so, he tried his best to help ease the pain which the girl was currently enduring until the time it vanished.