Angel Monarch

As the first monster noticed them and attacked, neither needed to say anything. Both of them knew what to do since this wasn't their first hunting trip like this.

The creature was a strange large ugly beetle which had some kind of corrosive saliva dripping from its mandibles. It was at least a rotten, which meant Sera was the one who killed it.

Since she was the one in need of more essence, Bran only had to kill the tainted so they wouldn't annoy her while she exterminated the rest.

A small group of tainted was nearby and they immediately bounded at Bran. Sera was already gone killing every creature she saw. It usually only took one glaive swing for them to fall down dead.

Funnily enough Bran didn't even need to do that much. The six tainted ran towards Bran, but at the 50 meter mark something weird happened. Suddenly their eyes, which held only madness within, turned fully lifeless.

The six monster fell over dead, seemingly for no reason. There was no wound on them, no apparent attack on their body. They didn't even act weird before dying, which meant it wasn't a mental attack.

Bran watched them fall over from the 50 meter distance, then began running towards the middle of the enemy horde. Many creatures tried to approach him, but all of them fell over dead when they reached the 50 meter mark. Except the rotten or corrupted, he left them alive since Sera needed them for essence.

Slowly as more and more creature died a dark green aura began to appear around Bran's body, but in the next second it was gone. The radius in which the tainted died grew in size, now reaching 60 meters. With each death the area became larger.

When two years ago Bran evolved he unlocked a very powerful ability. It gave him the power to steal other creatures' life force. This was different from life essence, it was more like he took the life right out of their body, bypassing every outside defense.

As an evolved it wasn't very powerful, since he couldn't change its strength. He could target which living beings he used it on, but the power didn't change no matter if there was one or a hundred creatures. This meant that his power was only limited by range and himself.

Luckily both of these issues were solved when he became ascended. As an evolved the power only came from himself, but as an ascended he gained the ability to steal and use the life force of the creatures he killed. This meant he could both increase his range and strength, the only thing he needed to do was kill more!

This ability was possibly one of the best crowd control any of them had ever seen, but that wasn't all. The real amazing thing was that this ability wasn't even his transformation.

If he decides to change, the range becomes a few hundred meters and its killing ability greatly increases. The only downside is that the power itself begins to syphon every living thing in his near proximity and the more he uses it the larger its effect becomes.

Back when he was an evolved, his power could barely kill a rotten in a dozen seconds and that was with his transformation. Now as an ascended he could kill even corrupted without transforming, it would take about half a minute, but he could still do it. While transformed that number goes down to a few seconds.

He even gotten his title when he became an ascended... Leech of Life...

It wasn't nearly as catchy as Angel Monarch or even Bringer of Disease. At first he felt weirded out by it, but since the title fit him quite well, eventually he come to accept it.

The creatures died around him by the dozen. He still needed to pay attention to the rotten and corrupted, since they tried really hard to kill him, but their numbers were decreasing quite fast.

Bran looked further ahead where flashes of lights and tongues of white flames marked Sera's extermination. While his ability was crowd control, Sera's was pure destruction.

She was as strong against one opponent as against a hundred. If the enemy was only slightly above her strength or rank, that would be a death sentence for that being.

She was like an artist, who used flames and blood as her paint and corpses as her canvas. Bran wasn't a person who enjoyed watching a fight, but it all changed when he looked at Sera's movement.

All the small calculated wingbeats, the flick of her wrist at just the right moment, the movement of her hips when she was leveraging a stronger opponent, the small trickle of sweat running down her beautiful face, the movement of her breast when a blow hit her armor...

Slowly Bran shook his head and tried to get the dirty images away. He even closed his eyes for a second or two. When he opened them a corrupted was currently leaping towards him, but soon only two burning halves fell to the ground nearby.

A bit confused and disoriented he looked at Sera flying above him, then he began looking around...

All of them were dead...

A horde of more than two hundred and fifty monsters...

It took them only about five minutes to kill every single one! The funniest part was, that it wouldn't have taken that much, if either of them would've used their strongest forms.

The reason they done it this way was fairly simple. They were conserving their energy and essence since the hunt has just begun.

Gradually Sera floated towards the ground. Bran had already turned off his ability, when he noticed the lack of enemies to use it on. They walked towards each other, then stopped a few meters away.

Sera's face showed no emotion, she just nodded a bit towards Bran acknowledging his help. As an answer Bran unconsciously pumped out his chest from pride. He soon noticed this action and he turned away with a blush.

Luckily for him Sera wasn't paying it any mind because her focus was on the status window. Slowly Bran walked towards her and looked over Sera's shoulder at her watch.

He seen her status a few times, and even read all the descriptions once. In his opinion Sera shouldn't have been that trusting with him, but she needed a right hand man she could trust and there was literally no one else other than him.

Currently both of them were looking at one specific line – 'Life Essence Absorbed: 8547/10000'

"Damn, it didn't even increase by a hundred... *sigh* This will be impossible like this..." Said Sera, her voice sounded annoyed, but Bran knew that wasn't a case. She had no emotion and with a quick glance he knew that she was just simply tired.

Not physically, but mentally. She had been making plans for about a year, pretending for the past two years and now that she was so close to making her goals a reality, the exhaustion was slowly catching up.

Without thinking much Bran put a comforting hand onto her shoulder and subverting all his expectations, Sera let it stay there. But Bran thought it wasn't enough, so he tried to say a few comforting words as well.

"Don't worry about the life essence, we both know that a large operation will definitely happen this month... *chuckle* New Constantinople won't going to capture itself, eh?" Unknowingly a small smile appeared on Sera's face, which also brought a small warm feeling in her heart, but Bran wasn't done yet.

"Also, do you really think I would let Harold take you?" Bran nearly fell over from surprise, when something very strange happened... Sera laughed...

It wasn't the usual mocking or imitating laughter she had done, but a sound that was like a delightful melody to his ears. Slowly Sera turned around and Bran's eyes widened when he saw the most beautiful woman in the world smile right at him.

"You won't let him?... *giggle* I would definitely pay to see that!" Since he was still so surprised, he didn't find a proper answer for a few seconds, but eventually he straightened his chest and mustered his most prideful and haughty voice.

"Why are you mocking me? He is just one of the strongest, or maybe the strongest transcended on this planet! I could take care of him without any issue whatsoever." This made Sera laugh even harder.

"Stop... *laughter* I can't breath..." She said between laughs. Her eyes were already teary from all the laughing, but still she didn't stop. It was like all the previous two years' pent of happiness suddenly came bursting out of her, but what Bran said next put an end to her chuckling.

His haughty expression changed into something serious and in a voice that was nearly a whisper he spoke.

"I'm serious Sera... If Harold would try to take you, I would immediately start our plans and I wouldn't stop until he is either dead or you are rescued... If need be I would go straight into his facility alone to get you out! You could mock me all you want, but I'm hundred percent serious when I tell you, I would walk straight into hell just see you safe and happy..."

Suddenly Bran's eyes went wide, what happened next wasn't even remotely close to his expectations. He still wanted to say more, but it was quite difficult since Sera's tongue was currently occupying it!

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