Mater did not hesitate and jumped back on to the Dark Grimoire. The black cat was stingy no more and flooded as much magic as possible to the book and made it fly away in high-speed.
The figure lifted its head up. Its two tall horns kept growing and growing until it reached the average height of the deer antler.
The blood wraith slammed its foot on the ground and launched its body upward. The entire cave trembled due to its strength.
"It can affect the physical world? This thing is not weak."
"Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill..."
The word 'kill' echoed throughout the cave. Sometimes it was as close to Mater's ears. Sometimes it sounded far away deep beneath the ground.
"This wraith should be the one that haunted David Rendell. The previous one was simply a decoy...
I had a feeling that it was too easy."
The black cat kept flying away on its book. Two streams of air split to the side as the book gained more momentum.
The blood wraith launched itself up to the air. It smacked its two bloody hands together, aiming at Mater afar.
Suddenly, bloody bones emerged at the ground Mater was at. They looked like a set of ribcage that quickly closed up with the goal to trap the black cat.
Mater rode the book like a hoverboard and ascended, avoiding the bone trap. The ribcage shut tight a split of a second after the black cat got out.
"Manifestation? Now this is a real use of Chaos."
Mater looked back at the blood horn-y wraith. It was still chasing him. Each time its feet touched the ground, the cave shook a little.
"My turn. Chains of Shadow!"
The black cat meowed. Chains shot out from the nearest shadows and wrapped around the blood wraith.
It roared in discontent but was unable to move. Mater jumped off his book and fell directly on top of the blood wraith. His mouth opened wide.
"Desperation Scream!"
A shockwave shot out, forcing the blood wraith to kneel down. The push-back force flung Mater upward. He curled up into a ball and rolled in the air.
The Dark Grimoire came over and caught Mater flawlessly. All was under his control.
There were cracks on the bloody surface of the red wraith. Mater's attack caused damage for sure but it was much less effective than when he did it to the green wraith from before.
Or maybe this blood wraith was much more durable and resilient.
Mater intended to jump down and deliver another close [Desperation Scream] to the wraith's face but it already broke free from his spell.
The blood wraith pulled the chains forward. Cracks appeared on the surface of the chains and suddenly, they were all turned to dust.
The original restraining effect of 12 seconds was reduced to 6 seconds.
"[Chains of Shadow] is less effective..."
Mater turned the Dark Grimoire around and kept flying. He was a fragile spell-caster at the moment and had none of his Demonic Arsenal. The black cat was not going to fight the blood wraith face-to-face.
The bloodwraith roared again. It slammed its forearms onto the ground. Bony spikes spurted from the top and bottom of the cave.
Mater controlled the book to slip through the empty space between the spikes and went over them.
"A second type of attack...
The first one was a ribcage that can trap the enemy.
The second one are the bone spikes.
Both of them require some type of surface to work.
That wraith can also damage the physical world. Based on the rumbling it makes, it must also be very strong physically."
The bloodwraith saw that its attack didn't work. It punched itself on the head repeatedly before dashing forward and following Mater. It was much faster this time with its hands hurled aimlessly in the air.
"What the hell?"
Mater meowed. He pumped more magic into the book to enhance its speed.
600 kilometers of blood vessels really weren't that much of magic. Considering the fact that it was an incomplete Chaos Circuit and the Chaos in Mater's blood wasn't that condensed either.
He burned most of his original magic away, reaching to the last few drop of Chaos left in his blood.
"Ah... If I was a human, I would have at least a few more minutes in me."
The three circles around his heart lit up in red. Mater didn't even have the time to absorb the three Chaos Stones of the previous green wraith. Pure Chaos was still hiding inside his body, waiting to advance his Chaos Infusion Level.
Now, he had no choice but to burn the Chaos inside the stones as contingency magic.
The Dark Grimoire slowed down for a split second when Mater's magic ran out. But it immediately gained his speed back with the new Chaos pumping directly from the stones.
The bloodwraith jumped forward and clawed at Mater. The book accelerated just in time to escape from its grasp.
"Phew. That was a little bit close.
Chains of Shadow!"
Chains reached out from darkness and wrapped around the bloodwraith, buying Mater six seconds to extend the distance.
"That wraith isn't that hard to deal with. But it had really thick skin. Desperation Scream won't be enough to kill it. I need more powerful spells."
The three Chaos Stones in Mater were used up a little bit but there should still be enough for him to advance his distance in Chaos Infusion Rank. After that, Mater planned on doing safer jobs with easy catch like the green wraith from before.
Mater had sensed a lot of Chaos around the city so it should be easy to find new targets. He intended to reach Chaos Infusion level 2 before trying to fight this bloodwraith again.
"On level 2, I would be able to inscribe another spell on the Grimoire. This time I need to pick something with more damage to deal with this bloodwraith."
Each level in the Chaos Infusion Rank allowed one additional spell to be inscribed in the Dark Grimoire.
Chaos Eyes was an essential spell to locate Chaos so Mater had to pick that for his level 1.
He could erase the original three spells of the Dark Grimoire, replacing [Chains of Shadow], [Desperation Scream], or [Page of Imprisonment]. But Mater liked those three spells so he didn't want to replace them.
The bloodwraith went after Mater relentlessly but it couldn't catch the black cat. When the distance between them became too close, Mater simply rooted the bloodwraith with [Chains of Shadow].
"Ah. I've reached the entrance. It is fun playing with you, dirty specter. But I need to go now.
Shall we meet again."
Mater meowed.
The black cat accelerated to the entrance with the bloodwraith following closely behind. It managed to close the distance again but Mater didn't worry.
He was about to use [Chains of Shadow].
Suddenly, Selina jumped out from the darkness.
"Mr. Mater! Watch out!"
"Get out of the way, you stupid woman!" The black cat meowed loudly.