Chapter 589: War Against the Demonic Society (ii)

Xavier’s crew slaughtered thousands of demons. Piles of ash and severed bodies littered the plains.

However, the horde simply stepped over their dead and continued to press forward.

The Demonic Society deployed towering behemoths armed with siege cannons. The endless wave of bodies began to overwhelm Rin and Kylus. Silver aura flickered as Rin deflected a dozen incoming strikes. Kylus staggered backward while struggling to keep his overheated blade ignited.

Xavier found himself surrounded by hundreds of elite guards. His Golden Authority flickered under the relentless assault. He needed to escalate his tactics.

Xavier accessed his system interface and navigated to the Essence Absorption System. He selected the True Vampire Essence he had acquired from Reva.

[ Essence Activated: True Vampire Metamorphosis. ]

A surge of freezing energy eclipsed the golden starlight in his veins. Xavier dropped his weapons and threw his head back. His black hair elongated and turned a stark white shade. His fingernails extended into razor-edged keratin talons.

The glow of his eyes shifted from starlit gold to a terrifying crimson. His skin turned pale as moonlight.

The surrounding demons paused, confused by the sudden biological shift.

Xavier vanished from plain sight, relying solely on his newly multiplied base speed rather than a void step. He reappeared directly behind a towering behemoth and plunged his bare hand into the creature’s back. His talons ripped the monster’s spine out of its body.

He moved like a crimson blur across the battlefield. He tore through the demonic ranks with bare hands, his talons slicing through hyper-titanium plating like wet paper.

Every time an enemy managed to land a strike on his flesh, his wounds sealed instantly while drawing vitality from the spilled blood around him.

He grabbed a demonic captain by the throat and ripped his head off. He hurled the severed skull into a group of advancing shock troopers with enough force to bowl them over.

Leaping into the sky, Xavier conjured a storm of crimson blood-blades from the spilled gore of fallen demons. He rained the lethal projectiles down upon a cluster of enemy tanks, piercing their armored hulls and detonating their fuel reserves.

He landed in the center of the fiery blast, totally unharmed, and ripped a siege cannon off its mount. He swung the colossal weapon like a club to smash a dozen elite guards into the dirt.

The Demonic Society’s numerical advantage meant nothing against the True Vampire form. Xavier fed on their fear and their life force, turning the ground into a monument of his unending conquest.

Rin and Kylus paused their desperate defense to watch Xavier decimate the armada’s vanguard.

Xavier surrendered completely to the predatory instincts of the True Vampire. His white hair whipped wildly around his pale face as he vaulted over a destroyed siege cannon. He landed on all fours amidst a fresh battalion of shock troopers. His crimson eyes darted toward the closest pulse within the enemy ranks.

He lunged forward and buried his fangs directly into a demon’s neck. The creature collapsed instantly while Xavier drained its vitality to fuel his rampage.

He ripped his bloodstained mouth away and spun to face a dozen advancing guards. He did not bother summoning his starlight shields or calculating tactical strikes. The feral metamorphosis had stripped away his higher intelligence and replaced it with an insatiable hunger for violence.

He charged blindly into the wall of shields. His keratin talons tore through the hyper-titanium alloys like wet paper. He grabbed a guard by the ankle and swung the screaming demon around like a club to bludgeon the rest of the squad into the dirt.

Rin and Kylus backed away from the slaughter. The swordsman lowered his silver-lit blades and watched Xavier rip a heavily armored behemoth to pieces with his bare hands.

“He is completely out of control,” Rin yelled over the roaring explosions. “He is just attacking whatever moves.”

Kylus deactivated his thermal cutter to conserve energy. “Let him clear the field. We just need to stay out of his way.”

Suddenly, the boiling clouds above the plains parted violently. A specialized command ship descended from the upper atmosphere. The vessel lacked the bulky artillery of the surrounding dreadnoughts and featured a sleek, obsidian hull lined with glowing violet runes. The boarding ramp lowered while the ship still hovered a hundred feet in the air.

An Elder of the Demonic Society stepped off the ledge.

He floated gracefully toward the ground. He wore ornate robes woven from dark matter and possessed eight piercing violet eyes that locked directly onto the feral vampire. He carried no physical weapons.

The Elder landed softly on the cracked earth. He raised both of his hands and unleashed his unique abyssal ability. Hundreds of glowing violet threads shot from his fingertips. The magical strings darted across the battlefield and plunged directly into the spines of the surrounding demonic soldiers. The Elder forcefully hijacked their nervous systems to turn the terrified grunts into completely obedient puppets.

Xavier noticed the new arrival. He dropped the mangled torso of a guard and bared his fangs. A feral hiss escaped his lips. He kicked off the ground and launched himself at the Elder with terrifying speed.

The Elder simply flicked his wrist. Dozens of mind-controlled minions threw themselves directly into Xavier’s flight path to form a literal wall of flesh.

Xavier crashed into the living barricade. He tore through the first layer of bodies with his talons. He ripped limbs from sockets and snapped spines without a second thought. However, his beast-like state robbed him of his usual strategic focus. Instead of void-stepping past the meat shield, he wasted precious seconds butchering the endless supply of puppets.

While Xavier was distracted by the slaughter, the Elder manipulated the violet threads to weave a massive, razor-edged net. He hurled the magical construct through the air. The glowing wires wrapped tightly around Xavier’s limbs and sliced deep into his pale skin.

‘What is this monster?’ The Elder thought. ‘How can someone be this strong? It doesn’t make sense.’