The calamity shrieked in pain and did what any savage calamity would do; the porcupine used his mouth to snap at Aezaleon instead of using any other offensive or defensive abilities he had. His retaliation was the blind lashing of a wounded beast cornered in the dark.

Whereas, Aezaleon perfectly saw the attack coming and despite his close range he was still able to dodge it, following the appropriate footwork.

Immediately afterwards, he also separated the calamity’s head from his body with an upward swing of his blood claymore before it could do anything else. Performing both movements almost instantaneously and consecutively.

SPURT!

The blade was a swift red scythe harvesting a ripe soul.

The blood flowed while the head flew, landing not far from the body, which after a few undead steps, also fell to the ground with a loud thud, raising a small cloud of dust.

SIGH!

Aezaleon exhaled in a weary manner. Wiping the fresh blood from his face.

"That was fast! You really caught the calamity off guard," Clementine gave her evaluation on landing near him in a graceful motion.

"Also, the pain you gave it, gave you the perfect opportunity to win so effortlessly, otherwise I couldn’t see it as anything else other than being a bloody battle where both of you had even odds of dying. Without my intervention, of course," she added at the last in a matter-of-fact tone.

Aezaleon blinked, unconvinced by her words. "Why do you think so? Did I not completely neutralize his initial attack?" he argued in a defiant voice. "I think I would’ve somehow managed to kill it too, without turning the battle life-threatening, bloody or dangerous for—"

While he was speaking, Clementine cut her index finger with her thumb and put it in his mouth with a sudden movement.

"Hmm!"

Aezaleon raised his brows with a surprised, questioning look. Clementine smiled gently. "Drink it. My blood will help in healing your wounds faster," she said softly, while also using her other hand to suck the blood out of his clothes. Her blood was a liquid ruby, pulsing with an ancient, forbidden warmth.

Meanwhile, Aezaleon was thoroughly left speechless by the woman’s unusual actions. And the strangeness only intensified when he remembered the words she uttered before bringing him to this forest.

Even though Aezaleon won the battle under a minute, the wounds on his hands indeed weren’t light. His muscles had ruptured and his skin had cracked because of the pressure he put on them; by accelerating them at a speed capable of performing more than thirty moves within a single second, the strain was immense, even more when he used his full strength to perform the action.

Anyways, as Aezaleon drank Clementine’s blood, he couldn’t help but feel even more surprised, because he actually liked the taste of her blood; it was very much delicious.

He didn’t know why that was the case. Whether it was because it was the very first thing he ate since his birth, or was it because he was a calamity, or perhaps because it was just simply delicious; not like he cared either. The flavor was an addictive nectar, drowning his common sense.

After drinking her blood for five seconds normally, Aezaleon started to use force to suck more blood out of the cut Clementine made, even biting her finger to force more blood out. Clementine, on the other hand, outright ignored his actions and watched calmly as his hands healed back to normal within just 10 seconds.

It only took such a long time to heal because she had actually diluted her blood in her own body before giving it to him. Since, regardless of her current ascension rank, she was still a primordial vampire. The information her blood carried wasn’t something a pureblood calamity would be able to handle.

Clementine took her fingers out of Aezaleon’s mouth. Looking at him with strange, searching eyes. "Even if you are a child, I still don’t think it is appropriate for a man of your size to be sucking... my finger like that," she said teasingly, burning the saliva on her finger in crimson-red flames, while the wound she made had already regenerated.

"Ah...! Ugh...!"

Only now, Aezaleon realized what he was doing. He flushed a deep red; he really was lost in her blood and became even more embarrassed when Clementine called him out like that. His face burned with the heat of a thousand shamed suns.

"In any case..." On sensing the sheer embarrassment from her supposed master, Clementine decided to leave the matter at hand, changing the subject.

"Do you even know what an ascension rank 3 ascendant is capable of doing, or better yet, what an ascension rank 2 ascendant is capable of doing?" she questioned in a serious tone.

Aezaleon got himself together, putting this dark moment of his life to the back of his mind forever. "Currently, I don’t know," he replied in a sheepish voice.

"Indeed, you don’t know, and would’ve only come to know of it after experiencing yourself, which you fortunately have not; so let me enlighten your ignorant self," Clementine commented in a flat tone, while Aezaleon felt that she was overexaggerating a little too much.

No matter what, he was someone born with intelligence and strong abilities, so it shouldn’t be that hard for him to contend against or even kill other rank 3 calamities, even if he were to let them utilize all their abilities. Not to mention, with time he would’ve also learned what rank 2 and rank 3 are capable of doing.

Nonetheless, in spite of all of what he thought, Aezaleon also knew that Clementine wasn’t being untrue with him through their soul connection, so he was that much more confused by her current and previous words.

"Let me begin from the start..." She paused. Arranging and organizing the words in her mind and opened her mouth the next second.

"When one awakens his material ascension core and becomes a rank 1 ascendant; he has to utilize his energy in his ascension core to refine, nourish and strengthen his body. Like his organs, muscles, veins, bones, etc. to make himself stronger. Consequently, after reaching a certain level in this process of body nourishment and refinement, it becomes possible for one to ascend to the next material ascension rank: Ascension rank 2."

"And obviously, there are many ways to get the energy to refine and strengthen one’s body aside from utilizing one’s own internal energy. Like the ascension cores of the other lifeforms one kills or the primary energy stones."

"Regardless, we won’t talk much about that since you have already ascended to the second ascension rank forcefully some times ago; you do remember that painful experience you went through, correct?" she asked, glancing at him.

Aezaleon instantly remembered what had happened to him after he had established the soul connection with Clementine yesterday.

"So the small amount of energy I got during your soul restoration is what triggered my forceful ascension to the next rank in both my material and spiritual ascension cores," he deduced. With his hand rubbing his chin, he continued.

"In other words, the process of my own body breaking itself apart was actually it strengthening and nourishing itself with the excess energy released from your consciousness in my soul. So this passive and forceful approach in ascension is what made me go through that damn hell, huh!" he voiced with a grimace.

"Well, yeah!" Clementine nodded affirmatively.

"This is a time consuming process, where even if you are talented and have resources to ascend to the next rank immediately, you would still need to spend a minimum of a whole day to let the energy slowly strengthen and nourish your body, considering the innards of one’s are a delicate thing. However, this need of a day’s time is only if you don’t want to experience pain; otherwise 4-6 hours are enough to ascend to the next rank, just as what happened with you."

Her explanation was a cold light illuminating the dark path he had walked.

"OH!"

Aezaleon nodded in understanding. Waiting for Clementine to continue her explanation. She also didn’t want to dilly dally any further and wanted to get this over with, to continue their hunt as soon as possible.