Chapter 207 – Descent Into the Catacombs

Lilyth

Aki’s idea allowed us to get past the enemy defences and catch them with their pants down. Not that most of them wore any. The sight of Sanguine Hunters wearing a jogging suit would be hilarious, though. Or… wait! Wait! Hear me out! Brown cloth pants, a white short-sleeved button-up shirt and a blue tie. The mental image of a Sanguine Hunter in that get-up, sitting behind a desk in an office, two hands working on the PC, one holding a coffee cup and the last one a smartphone. Seriously, the Blood would have made such a better use of his monsters by running an IT Outsourcing Centre.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh right, the ensuing slaughter.

We dropped down to the second floor and found a bunch of stunned Lower and a single High Sanguine. Aki eliminated them with a [Jet of Hellfire].

Caei cast [Rock Burst] beneath the charred corpses and down we went to the third level. Here the defences were the strongest but our dynamic entry once again caused havoc and any sort of resistance quickly began to crumble.

Shock and awe, motherfuckers.

Persephone

We immediately came under Blood spell projectiles barrage upon reaching the dug-out corridor. I created a [Flaming Wall] to shield us and we retreated.

‘Shit,’ Savri spat while healing a shoulder wound she got after some Sanguine spell or another grazed her. ‘I don’t think we can get past that.’

I agreed. Spells, for the most part, required line of sight to cast. There were some exceptions, like the teleportation spells I was using.

‘Persephone,’ Lilyth suddenly said, ‘can you use [Pyrokinesis] to curve your Fire spells?’

‘Possibly,’ I replied. ‘But we agreed to “no Fire projectiles”.’

‘What about Earth?’

‘I don’t have the ability for that.’

‘But I… do,’ the pause was suspicious. ‘Had to rebuy [Lesser Manipulate]. Stupid skill loss on dying. Like I can understand fucking random abilities but a racial one?’

She let out an angry grunt, which only made me feel worse about what I was about to say.

‘Lilyth… honey… [Lesser Manipulate] won’t work here. Maybe if I had it. But not with an external caster.’

‘Fuck.’

‘How quickly can you put up those flame barriers?’ Aki asked. ‘And what's the maximum distance?’

Well… I'll be damned, I thought after Aki proposed her plan

Yhanheer

Something was wrong, High Vicar Yhanheer could tell. The intruders gave up too easily.

Should we pursue them? But that would mean disobeying orders that came from Lord Blood itself.

Yeah. They would stay, he decided. At least they were in a defensible location.

‘Movement!’ Feghitt, one of the four Vicars with him, reported and he was right.

The white-haired weird demon descended down the path leading to the dig-out.

Just her?

‘Open fire,’ he shouted, seconds before a series of [Flaming Walls] began going up, starting just in front of them and then every metre until the entrance.

It took them maybe half-a-minute to bring down that barrier, an eternity in closed-quarters combat, only to have to do it again. And again.

‘Now!’ Someone shouted and the barrier nearest to them went down, only to reveal the entire enemy group there ready to strike.

FUCK.

Two Vicars next to him were immediately pierced by sharp rock spikes coming out of the ground.

[Obsidian Trees], he realised that there was no hoping those two men. The idiots didn't have barrier spells on.

Feghitt and Julheem began to summon [Sanguine Barrages] in response, Yhanheer quickly deciding to follow in his footsteps, but before the two Vicars could launch them, the former was shot through the centre of mass with an insanely powerful magical arrow that went through his barrier as if it wasn't there, and the latter was hit with a barrage of magitek bolts and a [Sanguine Lance], turning her body into a broken sack of flesh and bones.

He had to focus on a single target to at least take down one of them, so he chose the pink-haired demon. Lord Blood said she was their healer.

He immediately launched a second [Sanguine Barrage] at the black-haired girl which he was told was a rebellious Serrated Blade.

Four out of five shots fired at the healer were stopped by a glowing barrier, but the last one pierced her and hit on the chest, staggering her back. The ones sent at the traitor were more effective. All five hit and sent her flying.

Thus always to traitors.

That was his last conscious thought, because the next second his head was diagonally cut in half by a sharp wave of pure death.

Persephone

‘Deirdee!’ Caei shouted and rushed to the assassin’s side.

Sav ignored her own injury and joined her, but Deirdee shook her head and with a shaky hand pointed at me.

‘Not you,’ she croaked. ‘Her.’

‘You sure?’ I asked. ‘That “extra life” is a one-off.’

‘Yes… don’t… Want… t… to… b-be… its… any… more…’

I didn’t need anything more.

I incinerated the corpses of the Vicars and began infusing Dee’s body with fire.

‘One Succubus transformation coming right up. This may hurt a bit. Or a lot.’

Savri immediately cast [Soothe Pain] on Deirdee just in case.

Good. [Elemental Transformation: Succubus]

A series of notifications appeared in front of my eyes.

Error: Succubus transformation is impossible for this target.

Searching for a compatible template.

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Error. Template not found.

Analyzing.

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Target Corrupted.

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Cleansing.

Wait. What?

I tried to stop the process but received another notification.

Interrupting the cleansing procedure will kill the target. Are you sure you want to proceed?

Naaaaah. I’m good. Let's hope I don’t break Deirdee too much.

A few heartbeats later more messages appeared in front of my eyes.

Cleansing process completed.

Activating [Elemental Transformation: Sanguine Nephilim]

Lilyth

As we waited for Persephone to finish transforming Deirdee into a Succubus, I decided to pick Caei’s brain a bit.

‘Tell me something: this fucko,’ I checked the notification, ‘Yhanheer was a High Vicar. That marks two that I killed. How many of them are in total? Or were, at any rate.’

‘As far as I know, there were four in total,’ she replied.

‘And how many normal fuckos?’

‘This changes, but rarely more than ten.’

‘So we killed what… most of the Sanguine leadership? I know your brethren don’t exactly believe in the sanctity of life, but even from a purely pragmatic point of view… those are some REALLY costly losses. Which begs the question… what the fuck is down here?'

My Dark Sorceress shuddered.

‘You have no idea how bad it really is. Once someone becomes a Crimson Vicar, they become incredibly risk-averse, so even one of them taking the field is rare. This many… There is nothing valuable enough for that. Unless…’

‘... The Blood itself ordered it,’ I finished for her. ‘Which is weird because didn't Nyx tell us they are not allowed to interfere with us peasants? At least on the macro scale? Ordering an invasion… that strikes me as a massive violation.’

‘And now that your furry peasant ass realised that,’ I heard Nyx say, sounding absolutely furious,’ look for any evidence of the Blood’s direct involvement. There might be some really tasty kibble on the line for you, makes your coat shine you know. Oh, right, also a relief force to help with evacuations and holding the line. There are already volunteers gathering to help you, but there is a difference between that and us deploying our militaries.’

Judging by the expressions on everyone's faces, they just heard the same thing from their patrons. Hopefully, not the bit about the kibble. It did sound nice, though.

‘I guess this is why the Great Game exists,’ I sighed.

‘Yeah,’ Savri laughed. ‘“Cold Wars goes Hot” scenarios are never pretty. You will have to let me try that kibble though.’

‘I wonder if it works on hair too,’ Aki agreed.

Fuck.

Aki

‘Okay,’ Persephone finally said, sparing me further humiliation,’ I am done. That took a lot out of me.

I noticed she changed back to her regular human form and actually began to sway. Lilyth ran over to grab her, ‘Phone fell between her arms and crashed to the ground.

Oops.

‘My knight in shining armour,’ Persephone said in a touched tone, as Lilyth helped her sit up and sat down next to her.

‘You saved me, so I had to at least try.’

Persephone seemed to appreciate that, as she leaned against Lilyth and put her head on my Jelly's shoulder.

Feeling territorial imperative of “MINE”, I sat down on Lilyth's other side and mimicked Persephone's position. My Jelly actually reciprocated by wrapping her arm around my back and touching my head with hers.

Take that, bitch!

‘How is she?’ Lilyth inquired

‘I don’t know…’ Persephone sighed. ‘The transformation didn't go as planned.’

I looked at Deirdee but she didn't look any different.

‘What do you mean?’ Caei asked, concerned.

Before Persephone could answer, Deirdee's body dissolved into a mix of blood and fire, from which she began to reform out of the pool on the floor. Deirdee now sported two Sanguine horns and there was a blood-red halo of fire surrounding her head. Two pairs of crimson liquid wings covered in fiery eyes burst out of her back and a long cross-tipped tail snaked around her legs.

SO COOL! Buuut…

‘What the fuck Persephone?!’ Lilyth shouted in indignation. ‘I only get lame horns and tail and Deirdee is turned into a fiery angel of blood? Have you two been fucking and Deirdee is really good at eating pussy or something?’

Before the sorceress could answer my Jelly’s very valid questions, a voice boomed in our minds and, to my horror, ears, causing me a splitting headache and the corridor to actually shake.

‘NOOOOOO! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS TRANSGRESSION, MORTAL!’

‘Ouch,’ Lilyth winced and gave the, as she called it, one-fingered salute in the vague direction of our destination. ‘Well… whatever you did, seems to have hacked off the Blood mighty fine. So, complaint retracted.’

‘Yeah,’ Persephone grimaced. ‘And sorry. I don’t know if this is due to her being a Serrated Blade or just a Sanguine in general… but I couldn't transform her into a Succubus. She was corrupted and the system… cleared it. I have no idea what she is now. The system called the form a "Sanguine Nephilim".’

‘Can I go next?’ Caei asked.

To her disappointment, we decided to delay Caei’s transformation until she was mortally wounded. It was too costly in mana and having that “extra life” banked was nice, as Lilyth could attest.

Deirdee, meanwhile, seemed ecstatic about her new form.

‘I have wings again!’ she squeed. ‘And horns!’

‘Shall we go test your new bod' out?’ Persephone, having just drank one of our two remaining mana potions, smiled.

The next chamber used to contain a stone bridge over a shallow, maybe three-metres deep at most, but wide ravine, but it seemed that it collapsed, or was collapsed in preparation for our arrival.

Probably the latter, I decided after the light of my [Abyssal Spark] revealed a horde of undead in the depth below.

Out of the blue, Ren fired her bow at the other side of the ravine and a scream of pain soon followed. She fired another one.

‘Vicar Hyyghejd,’ she read out the notification.

Another one.

‘Now what do we do about the pit of zombies?’ Sav asked. ‘I can't help but think those are there to slow us down and force us to waste mana.’

I sighed and cast [Abyssal Bombardment], one of the two new abilities I unlocked after Lilyth… you know.

I almost lost her… I can't believe another person I love almost left me.

The intense sorrow only intensified the strength of my spell and soon the zombies were nothing but ashes. Persephone used the chance to top herself up on mana by absorbing the flames and transferred what she couldn't use to Lilyth and Deirdee.

Using rubble from the bridge as ramps we ran across the ravine and entered the next chamber, which looked to be part of whatever caused the place to be closed-down, as the room was built out of stone blocks. 

‘You!’ a familiar voice shouted. ‘Finally, we meet again!’

The figure awaiting was a six-armed Sanguine grafted onto the four-legged lower body of a Broodlord.

Gaar’rinver, I vaguely remembered that loser’s name.

Next to him stood a three-metre tall man with four arms, the lower two ending with blades instead of hands, and a hunched hulking figure walking on six arthropod-like legs with a Behemoth-like cluster of six arms coming out of its green-liquid filled pustule-covered back.

The monstrous trio was surrounded by an absolute horde of citizens-turned-thralls and revenants that appeared to be former City Guard members.

‘Spooder-boi!’ Lilyth responded cheerfully. ‘Been a while since you ran like a bitch after I broke your mask.’