Chapter 203 – Entering the Big Leagues

Lilyth

Well… fuck.

I have never seen the Sanguine in such massive numbers. There were dozens of them, led by the actual High Sanguine, too. Larry, Curly and Moe in those funky red robes must have been Crimson Vicars, with the diva in a tiara, Larry being a High Vicar. Meaning we were turbo fucked.

‘I guess, I will see you in Ere’s realm later today,’ I mouthed to my companions.

I looked at the Blade of the Black Rose.

Item: Blade of the Black Rose

Class: Weapon - Special - Bastard Sword

Rarity: Unique

Durability: 50/50

Effects:

Small chance to imbued with the user’s dominant arcana type on strike (doesn't consume mana)

Traits:

• Soulbound - Cannot be stolen. If lost, it can be resummoned by the owner at any time. If damaged, durability is restored at twice the owner’s natural healing rate.

• Focus - can be used as a spell focus to channel a chosen arcana type to launch a ranged attack (consumes mana)

Imprint: The day that Tyrric was accepted into the Order of the Black Rose was the proudest in the young knight's life. The Tower of Trials was supposed to be the place where he would show that his place in the Order was well-earned. Instead, it became his tomb, like for all who dared to enter that cursed place.

I wonder…

Based on my previous experiments, I knew that I could channel spells through other spells, something Persephone advised me against, but since we were likely already dead anyway…

Might as well get dangerous.

Ere told me that I could parcel out the abilities of my [Avatar of Death] form to make them more… usable, so…

A notification appeared in front of my eyes.

Are you sure you want to transfer part of the [Avatar of Death] ability to Item: Blade of the Black Rose?

This will:

-Consume Item: Blade of the Black Rose

-Consume Item: Sol

-Consume Item: Luna

-Cost 1 Perk Point

Yes/No?

I thought “Yes”, I felt something tug at my soul and in a flash of black light, the weapon turned into a mortuary sword with an obsidian black ribcage-shaped basket hilt and a black rose as its pommel. It felt so good in my hand, like an old friend.

Item: Moonlight Rose

Class: Weapon - Mortuary Sword

Rarity: Unique

Durability: N/A

Traits:

• Soulmade - Created out of a piece of the user’s soul. Cannot be destroyed. Can be resummoned if lost.

• Magically Infused - Death - Attacks have a chance to inflict additional Death damage. Higher levels of Umbral Arcana knowledge will improve the probability of the effect occurring.

• Focus - can be used as a spell focus to channel Umbral Arcana to launch a ranged attack (consumes mana)

The process took less than thirty seconds and appeared to have been unnoticed by the Sanguine. Maybe they assumed I was activating some sort of weapon effect, or it was lost among the preparations we were all making. I had no idea why they were letting us do that. Maybe they were drinking in our growing panic, or Larry wanted to gloat.

Big mistake.

The answer came moments later when massive dimensional gateways opened, and more Sanguine poured through them, including two enormous Behemoths.

Ah. Comfort overwhelming numbers. Meaning gloating and telling us to surrender.

‘It has been an honour,’ Savri finally agreed with me. ‘We’ve had a good run.’

‘Aye,’ Aki nodded. ‘Whoever gets the least of them, buys the rest a beer on the other side?’

‘You’re on!’

High Vicar Larry seemed to be finally satisfied with his chances because he began his prepared speech:

‘Caeileera, it has been a while, hasn’t it?’

Really? We are doing THIS of all things?

Realising death was preferable to hearing Larry yap about finally catching a traitor or whatever, I transformed into the [Storm Form], activated the [Swiftness of the Wind], ripped out the nine millimetre out of its holster, aimed it at the fucker and before anyone could react, emptied the entire clip into him.

While I missed a few shots and some of the bullets were stopped by a magical barrier of some kind, enough got through it and hit, leaving several nice, brand-new holes in Larry’s face and chest. The impacts caused his body to dance and fall lifeless to the ground.

Level 35 High Vicar Seemar has been slain.

You have received 3500 experience points (9225/11500 total experience points progress to level 23).

Only level thirty-five? Laaaame.

Stunned silence fell upon the battlefield as the Sanguine were trying to process what had just happened.

To conserve mana, I reverted back to the [Cloud Form], dropped my now empty gun to the ground and, raising my new sword, leapt towards the other two Vicars.

Aki

‘I think Lilyth has got that flank,’ Sav said as we watched our furball decapitate one of the remaining Vicars and kill the other with [Shadow Barrage].

She then gathered Umbral energy around the blade of her new sword and fired a black crescent magical projectile that cut several of the Sanguine in half and started to carve her way to one of the Behemoths.’

‘I’ll take care of the other Behemoth,’ Persephone offered.

‘You sure?’ Sav asked.

‘Yep. You take care of the other two groups.’

There was no time to argue as the enemies were finally realising that the tables had turned and began to move towards us.

I activated the [Grace of Water] and the [Abyssal Barrier], then I lunged towards the nearest High Sanguine. Diving under his awkward sword swing, he wasn’t sure how to handle the barrier of flames surrounding my body. I slashed at one of his knees with Yuki-onna, easily severing his lower leg. As he fell down, he brushed against the [Abyssal Barrier] and his clothes caught on fire.

Unfortunate.

Several of the Sanguine Hunters didn’t get the memo of “Aki = hot in more than one way” and tried to attack me with their bare claws. Their screams of agony filled the air.

I couldn’t be complacent, however, as a pair of Sanguine wielding longswords made of blood began to charge towards me. [Abyssal Barrier] would likely have trouble with those, but I wasn’t alone, now was I?

Rennie’s magical arrow pierced through the man’s head, and a volley of bolts from Sav’s pistol took down the second one.

A large group of High Sanguine, there were at least ten of them, leading multiple hunters, decided to overwhelm me with sheer numbers, so I dropped my swords, pointed my hands at them and fired a [Jet of Hellfire] at them.

Persephone

She would have paid money to see the expression on the faces of the Sanguine after Lilyth just shot their precious High Vicar. Being unceremoniously gunned down was a perfect culmination of a career of one of those fuckers.

Having previously activated [Ethereal Form], it was now time for [Flight].

Rising above ground, Persephone wasn’t sure what to focus on first.

Chaff or straight to the Behemoth?

She decided to go for the former. Her friends needed some breathing room.

She summoned a [Fireball], infused it with Earth mana to add shrapnel, and then launched the magical projectile into a large group of enemies. She didn't manage to see the effects as several daggers flew through her chest.

She turned towards the source and saw two more Sanguine standing on one of the roofs. Like Deirdee, they were missing the forehead protrusions, meaning those must have been Serrated Blades.

‘Hello there!’ she waved to them with a smile. ‘You really shouldn’t have done that.’

She didn't have time or spare mana to play with them, so…

[Obsidian Tree]

Two spikes of sharp black rock erupted from the roofs and impaled them through their bodies. Then “branches” sprouted from the “trunks”, shredding the assassins’ bodies from the inside.

She returned her attention to the battlefield just to see Aki immolate multiple Sanguine and their monster pets with a [Jet of Hellfire].

A [Blood Lance] flew past Persephone's face. It would appear she caught the attention of one of the Vicars.

Were there more in the crowd?

No matter. That only meant that more of them were at the end of their road.

Deirdee

Dainyir and I were fighting the Sanguine Hunters side-by-side, trying to keep them away from Savri’s, Ren’s and Caeileera’s backs. At first, I was shocked that the boy took the sight of my “brethren” in such a stride, I mean, the sight of the gaunt creatures with four six-fingered arms and spikes running along their spine would have unmanned many-a-seasoned soldier, but then I remembered he had seen Phosi in action, and it was very hard to beat that particular experience.

One thing that worried me, though, was how most of the more powerful variants of the Lowers hung back, letting the Hunters take the brunt of the damage. They were clearly trying to tire us out before moving in for the kill.

It was already visible on Dain. None of us expected a fight of this size, so the choice of weapon and armour didn't feel as important, and as impressed as I was with him for managing to stand his ground, he lacked the constitution needed to last long in the battle, meaning I would need to step up.

No time like the present, I thought and activated [Crystal Weapon].

It was one of the two new spells I learned under R’as-T'uar’s tutelage and never had a chance to test it out in battle, making me very wary about using it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The blade of my smallsword shimmered and sparkled as it got coated in a diamond-like substance. I swung my weapon at the nearest Hunter and easily cut it open from shoulder to groin.

My second new spell was the [Grace of Water], and between it and my newly acquired dancing skills, I began weaving my way through the enemy lines, leaving a trail of bodies in my wake.

Caeileera

I wasn’t sure what was more surprising: the fact that it was starting to look like we might actually make it through this or that Seemar made High Vicar. The man was just a low-ranked Tirrleena’s toadie and, as you saw from his demise, wasn't exactly playing with a full deck.

Maybe something was different on this version of Dwynveia.

His presence here was very worrisome, too. No matter how much of a moron Seemar was, multiple Vicars being here meant that whatever was buried under the catacombs was extremely valuable.

Is this the “bad” stuff Rennie was talking about?

A horrifying thought then struck me.

What if they are just trying to slow us down?

We had to get rid of those clowns fast, so it was time to switch from taking potshots with [Rock Spikes] to [Sanguikinesis].

And there was plenty of blood for me to get creative with.

I activated [Lesser Blood Manipulation], and I began to gather the fluid from the ground. It first formed a ball, so I spread it around and formed it into a row of spikes. There was a new group of Hunters charging us, so I decided to test my projectiles on them. I repositioned the spikes into a configuration that would inflict the most damage and launched them.

The results exceeded my expectations, and I killed or injured most of the group.

Oh, look. More blood.

Persephone

One thing she quickly realised was that there were plenty of Serrated Blades on the field, and they just kept on opening more and more gates to bring in reinforcements, including two more Behemoths and several Broodlords that began to gobble up nearby corpses and grow in size.

What the fuck? This is a full-blown invasion!

That meant Persephone would need to break out the heavy-duty stuff and get rid of those pesky bastards, and oh boy, was she looking to finally be able to stretch her legs. What she never told her friends was that Rot magic was just her mother’s schtick. Sure, it was powerful, but Persephone never viewed it as more than a parlour trick. At its core, Rot magic was formed by mixing the Plant aspect of the Life Arcana with Death magic, making it something Lilyth could use if she wanted, but those two magic branches were never something Persephone liked. Her talents lie with the Fire and Earth Arcanas instead, and it was time to show the world why it took Malika to stop her.

She looked towards an area where she thought the next gate would open, and there it was. A group of those hornless bastards was beginning to gather.

[Garden of Flames: Explosive Blooms]

Dozens of mushroom-like fiery sprouts grew from the ground and exploded, taking down all of the Serrated Blades, a group of other Sanguine that were nearby and the fronts of nearby buildings.

Hopefully, there weren't people inside.

Next, it was time to start taking out the big boys as they finally began to advance.

She pointed her hand at a Behemoth surrounded by two Broodlords and a lot of chaff and rapidly closed it.

[Gravitational Collapse]

The spell was insanely mana-intensive as you had to cast it within the body of the target, something that was always difficult. Yet, sometimes the cost was worth it, as the magic formed a gravitational anomaly within the victim that caused it to implode and was strong enough to pull nearby objects and living beings towards it.

With a rapidly cut-short roar of pain, the body of the Behemoth collapsed into a ball of gore, surrounded by prone forms of the nearby Sanguine.

Persephone opened her hand again.

[Nova: Pillar of Flames]

The compacted mass ignited and rapidly expanded in a column-shaped explosion that engulfed all the nearby enemies.

Persephone was running low on mana, but there was an easy fix to that. It was high time for her to show her true form.

[Elemental Transformation: Queen of Hell]

The ashes of the Sanguine and fires caused by both spells flowed into Persephone’s body causing three pairs of wings of blue flames to erupt from her back, a pair of backwards-curved horns closer in shape to those of the Sanguine than those that Aki or Sav had to grow out of her forehead and a tail longer than her body and tipped with a small rounded bifork to sprout from just above her behind. Her ears slightly lengthened and became pointy.

Persephone’s transformation caught the attention of several of the Broodlords, who tried to swat them from the sky with the long tentacles sprouting from their backs.

Insignificant pests.

She effortlessly dodged the attack and flicked her right wrist.

[Gates of Despair: Clawing Hands]

The street below the Broodlords began to superheat and melt. Sensing danger, the six-armed spider-legged monsters began to scurry away, only for dozens of hands of molten rock to burst out from the inferno, grab them and start dragging them back to their fiery deaths.

Time to end this.

Persephone looked towards where Lilyth was. The furball just made her move towards the Behemoth on her flank. She launched herself into the air and dove towards the monster with the [Fist of Wind] ready. The strike shattered the monster’s spine and drove it to the ground. Lilyth then lopped off the top of the creature’s skull with her new sword.

That’s two.

Persephone decided to take down the other on her side, but saw that Rennie killstole from her, with a powerful shot from her bow.

Three.

Caeileera took care of the last one by launching three spears of blood into its head.

While she was distracted, another gate was opened, and another wave of the Sanguine rushed through. Persephone admired their bravery. She was also astounded by their stupidity.

[Garden of Flames: Hydra of Thorns]

As fiery vines began bursting from the ground and piercing through the Sanguine, a massive chill ran through her spine, followed by a beam of crimson magical energy firing into the sky from where she realised the catacombs were.

Wet-looking blood red clouds began to spread through the air, shrouding the city in crimson miasma. Dread seeping into her very essence, Persephone looked towards where the sun should have been and saw something that confirmed a truth so horrible that her worst nightmares seemed like pleasant dreams now.

A dimensional meld.

Where the sun was visible moments before, there was now a gaping black void, meaning that Ror-Bhyk was now partially in the Pale Badlands and the Blood that Devours had free access to Dwynveia.