Underworld - Book 8 - Chapter 30

So much for my carefully formed platemail. My fastest transformation was easily my Astral Form. I ignored my injury and turned into light particles. Flying forward, I was careful not to blanket my dark magic vampire friend as I intercepted the person behind her. Laser Fist arrived before the assassin could flee. The feminine shadowy figure tried to spin away but my light was faster.

At first, there was little resistance. Then my dense solar mana collided with much denser shadow mana. The assassin spun as she was launched aside.

Looking at Jasmine, I saw the blade sticking out of her chest. Her face had reverted to the impassive one she’d trained her entire life.

I prepared to heal her with dark magic as I frantically searched for Aeris when I was forcibly transformed back into my most human form. Blood splattered out of my mouth. I had a blasted marble rolling around in one of the chambers of my heart. Generally, a well-placed orb transformed with me in a way I still didn’t completely understand. But as it was now, my body was treating it like shrapnel that needed to be expelled.

There was no time. I channeled some mana to my body to add to its natural health rejuvenation and was about to cast Laser from where I stood when Nava pounced on the fallen assassin in her electric Vitality Form.

Where’s my wife! I screamed internally. My dark magic heal hit Jasmine as I scanned the field to find that the soldiers from the Illuminated Cathedral had formed up and were being pressured from every side by a dozen shadow assassins. They weren’t alone.

Another assassin was chasing Nava, but the succubi battle maniac had taken advantage of the one I had knocked down. Degima was running with her spear as if she intended on intercepting the one after Nava. Ronja may have had a sole focus on status and fashion, but she was still a level 75,000 succubus. She was flying back and upward as if she didn’t want to chip a nail, yet a whip covered in neutral-grey energy lashed out at the three assassins that tried to follow her.

Then I found Aeris and what must have been the assassin that attacked me from behind as well as two others. They were dangling in the air like a row of hanging garments. Their shadow forms were gone, revealing three succubi dressed in black from neck to toe. She’d done to them what she’d done to the Jungle Fowl. Using her mastery of the Wind and their close proximity to her, she’d crushed their insides as evidenced by the blood running out of every orifice.

Geros was close by. The silver bodied golem was holding one shadow assassin in a bearhug while Nite Nite had swallowed the person’s head with his body.

Tossing Jasmine another heal, I switched to my Astral Form again despite the scolding pain inflaming my chest. Flying over Aeris who had things under control, I issued a command to Geros and Nite Nite. They tossed their assassin into the air.

Energizing my entire form with Laser, I flashed through the person’s waist, splitting them in two.

Landing hunched over on my hands and knees I vomited blood. The pain was enough that I wanted to curl up and lay there. Ordering Nite Nite back, I’d seen all that I needed to see. An Artificial Sun exploded into existence before the Sergeant Valls and his men. It engulfed most of the shadow assassins facing them.

I didn’t have to cast Creature Observation to know that the people we were facing were all around level 20,000. They were Mistress level and there were more of them than us, but in what world would did they think they’d survive this? Or was that the point. They hadn’t come believing they’d leave with their lives.

The squad from the Illuminated Cathedral wasn’t in danger of losing. The level difference was too vast. This assassin striking force had been well-trained, however. Each had had their target. Even the order in which they struck and the timing between each had been perfect. One had distracted me by attacking Jasmine while another came at me from behind an instant later. As for the others—how many layers to their surprise assault had there been?

There was no delay been the appearance of my Artificial Sun covering the area in light and the counter from Sergeant Valls and his squad. Three Light Javelins hit their mark despite the assassins trying to flee. Our melee fighters attacked in twos except for the Sergeant. He was wielding a wide-bladed axe as he rocketed forward.

Chopping horizontally when he passed by one assassin, his axe cleaved into their shoulder. With a smooth jerk, he lifted his axe in the same motion and drove it down. Before he collided with his target, the axe split them right down the spine.

In just a matter of moments, it was over. Ronja took the longest, but when she dragged one back alive with the succubus assassin struggling against the whip around her neck, the timid way she fought was instantly forgiven.

“Elorion!” Sister Nava screamed.

I found her kneeling over Jasmine with one hand on the vampire’s forehead and another on her abdomen. She was shocking her body with Vitality Aspect, using excess mana as if trying to keep her alive.

Aeris beat me to her side and Degima was already there. My perceptions leapt inside her before I reached her. It was then revealed why they’d even dared to attack us in the first place. Not only had she been stabbed from behind, but her core had shattered.

I remembered deeply what happened when my vampire friend Sai’s core had cracked during his fight with Manu Shah. His body had lost control over his mana, and it was bleeding out of him. This… This was far worse.

As I marched toward her, I transformed into my Trueblooded Vampire Form only to be forcibly changed back. Anticipating it, I grit my teeth as my mouth filled with blood and didn’t let the transformation happen. Spitting a mouthful of the red liquid aside, I took a knee across from Nava.

The young succubus who’d tried to kill us several times looked frantic. I realized I was beginning to understand her, even if it was to a limited degree. She’d chosen Yeri, an abuse victim that had fought back. It was the same with Mistress Contessa who had been rejected by the other succubi, so she took her in. Of course she would be drawn to Jasmine. Even if she was just doing it in a failed attempt to figure out her own place in the world as a succubus that wasn’t like the others, she wasn’t the monster I once thought she was.

As I placed my hand over the wound that had been just below Jasmine’s solar plexus, I was able to get a clearer look of what had happened inside her. There were fragments everywhere. Some of them had pierced into other organs and body tissues. As for her life’s mana—

I tried. I flooded her with dark mana despite the searing pain in my chest. When I saw Nava fall back onto her rear and just look at the dark elf vampire we both called friend, I wanted to shout at her to keep going. Then I saw her tears.

Stupid girl.

Didn’t she understand? She was giving up. Despite my transcendent mind stats, I didn’t consider myself especially wise. If anything, I’d learned one reality that seemed to override all others. With enough mana anything was possible. So I did what the lich and experience had taught me. While in my vampire form, I pour out everything.

Even as my grandmaster orb rolled around in my heart, rupturing it over and over even as it healed, I controlled billions of MP as I entombed her body in dark magic.

“Fool,” Shamash’s voice sounded in my mind with a volume ears weren’t designed to suffer. “You’ll destroy what’s left of her body.”

Cutting my mana without delay, I gathered much of it back while still encapsulating her so as not to let her mana escape. “What can I do?” I pleaded.

“She was dead before you or Nava tried to heal her. If you wouldn’t have attacked and for some reason the assassins left you alone, maybe it would’ve been possible. But she only survive for a handful of seconds after what was done to her core. It’s one of the surest ways to kill a high-level member of the monster races. Now reimplant your core. There’s no guarantee the assault is over or that there won’t be more.”

“No,” I demanded. “I’ve saved the others. Aeris, Mel—”

“They’re not dependent on a core and have light mana flowing in their blood. You’re Light Surgeon abilities are death defying, but only to light magic creatures.”

Sitting back on my feet, I held it for a little longer before letting go. The mana I had encircling Jasmine’s body began to slowly dissipate.

Only then did I realize my wife was floating a foot from my face in her Wisp Form.

“Can you fix it?” she shouted.

I felt pressure in my stomach just before I began to retch. Turning my head, I tried to keep myself from getting any on my wife, Jasmine, or the people across from me. Aeris tossed any droplets of blood that would’ve hit them to the side with a gust.

In the next moment, I found myself on the ground looking up. She had swept me up with her wind and laid me down. It hurt. A lot. Then I felt something I never wanted to feel again. It was like she was manipulating the air inside me to try and figure out what was going on.

My hand shot up in an attempt to stop her. It worked. Mostly. There were a few more seconds of internal creepy crawlies, but she’d changed back to her Sprite Form and was using her Light Magic to heal me. Not that I needed it.

“Wait,” I insisted with a little more force that I intended. “Let me.”

Closing my eyes, I looked internally and got ahold of my runaway orb with mana manipulation. The space it had been taking up in my heart had healed, so I went through the unnatural process of manipulating the flesh between the chambers in my heart. Moving the orb back in place, I closed the flesh over it. Compared to the master orb I’d once had there, this grandmaster one was much smaller. In less than a minute, I was good to go again.

Once I was done, I changed into my Astral Body. That didn’t stop Aeris from embracing me with her wind. The worst part about being in my human form was that my cores and jewel array could be targeted. I’d have to rely on Shapeshifting and True Forms from now on to make sure this never happened again.

I could also just get really good at putting them back in place or even just drain the displaced or damaged cores only to create new ones later. Those were thoughts for another time.

Thinking better of it, I transformed to Crimson Incubus and channeled mana to bolster my physical stats.

Aeris wrapped herself around me the second I did.

I ran my hand up and down her back, stealing a moment to reassure her, “I wasn’t in danger. It just hurt.”

Pulling back, she looked like she was about to ring my neck. “Say something next time. And if you can’t, well…” She huffed.

“It’s getting crowded,” Ronja warned.

I found her standing with her back to us while holding the assassin she’d caught out to the side. We’d been surrounded by Sergeant Valls and his men. My golems were mimicking them. Shamash, however, was creepily hovering behind me as if he were a lich or something.

Even though I couldn’t see the surrounding crowd, I could sense their presence. My perceptions shot out of my body and to get a look at our surroundings from above. Hundreds of people had gathered but were keeping their distance. I saw the Dendran a block away still sitting on its boulder, watching us from a distance.

There was something else that quickly drew my attention. It looked like a partially summoned portal. At first, I feared it was where the shadow assassins had come from, but as soon as I noticed it out stepped a succubus I’d seen before.

In many ways, she reminded me of Debra Whitfield with her long, elegant features, blond hair, and undeniable beauty. But like many of the half elves turned succubi, she had partially pointed ears. Until I knew the succubi’s history, it was a feature I hadn’t thought much of. In contrast, this succubus wore a black lacy gown with a billowing skirt. She was looking at my phantom perceptions dead in the eye.

“Hurry,” she said urgently. “It would be best to get out of the open. All of you.”

Ronja reacted by positioning her unconscious captive into a kowtowing position, while lowering her own head and announcing her. “Matriarch.”

This was the succubus who had been sitting behind Matriarch Hadassah in the lounge where Lilith had presented me and Aeris to them on my return from the Vampire Realm. She had teased Hadassah and even called the Head Mistress Little Lilith. I remembered her because she’d been among the first to vote for me to join the succubi.

I pulled my perceptions back to my body and began to stand. “Matriarch Kya,” I said, bowing my head in a way more appropriate to vampires than the succubi, but my meaning was clear.

Sergeant Valls issued a warning against trusting her.

I was quick to inform him of what I knew of her. Except for Nava and Lilith, she seemed to be among the most willing for us to be here.

“Understood,” the man replied to me.

“Still, be on guard,” I sent to him before calling out to the others. “Aeris, flying us into the portal. But first.”

I hurried over to where Jasmine was still lying. Bending down, I picked her up as gently as I could. I blinked, trying to keep tears from falling, but there was too much water gathering behind my eyes.

Aeris was floating at her side, unable to move. We’d both seen a lot of death since entering the Underworld but not that of someone we cared for. Up until this point, I’d been able to keep our friends alive.

Even Nava was standing there looking at the petite dark elf in my arms and overwhelmed with grief.

“Aeris, now,” I called raising my voice just enough to pull her out of her thoughts.

She nodded before pulling us from the ground. Matriarch Kya had already entered the portal. We plunged in after her.