RD 5 Ch 37

“And that’s how it ended up as it did,” I said, finishing my story of the Trial of Kings.

By the end, Nyx had consumed my lap. Gloria stayed close enough to reach me if she wanted, but not so close as to come off as clingy. Simone puttered around, cleaning up around us, and when she wasn’t busy with that she circled back to massage my shoulders as if she simply couldn’t keep her hands off me.

“Oh wow,” Nyx cooed from my lap, having turned into a serpentine puddle, all of her hair-snakes finally content after several rounds of petting. “I’m still somewhat amazed you managed to get all four of them out of there.”

Merlin had joined us and was leaning in the corner, watching our antics. Winnie and Almeria were absent, both tending to their groups and settling them, while Circe had just arrived to catch the tail end, taking only her first sip of tea.

“What was truly amusing,” Circe said, “was when he thought being dominant in bed would suddenly subdue me.” She air-quoted the last part.

“Did it not?” Nyx asked, looking up at me for an answer.

“It did not,” I sighed. “Instead, I just fucked her until she was satisfied and asked her for the troops. That worked just as well, if I’m honest.”

Circe sputtered into the tea she’d started drinking, and I was already tasting verbal victory.

“Towel?” Simone asked, sweeping in and offering one.

Circe snatched it away and dabbed her face. “All in all, it was worth the time, even if it was harder than we expected.”

Gloria nodded. “It sounds like Bran saved you and everyone else. Though perhaps you could have completed the Trial on your own, Bran took that option away from you.” Gloria shifted her gaze to me.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I held my hands up. “If given the option to save somebody I care for or let them struggle on their own, I’ll always choose to save. If that’s a problem, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can change that about myself.”

“It’s fine.” Simone came up behind me and rubbed my shoulders. “Gloria is just adjusting to not being your only princess anymore.” Simone stuck her tongue out at Gloria, who scoffed and refused to acknowledge the statement, which only made me think Simone was right.

“Still, it was an unexpected deviation. How’s everything with the tournament shaping up?” I pivoted the conversation to where I was most interested. I had caught them up but now I needed to know what had been happening on the outside. Even if it had only been two weeks, there was a lot that could happen in that time.

The mob princess crossed and uncrossed her legs, an almost physical shift as we changed gears. “The site is done. We’re sending groups to make sure everything’s set up for the tournament itself. It’s shocking, once you have someone who can produce raw materials, how quickly a group of high-level initiates can carve stone.”

I grunted in agreement. “If construction companies had existed after the rapture, infrastructure and building would have changed rapidly.” I had gotten Ozzy to donate someone who could work with sand and stone.

“But the work is progressing quickly enough. We’ll have everything done well in advance, just in case something goes wrong,” she said, rolling her eyes and murmuring into her drink. “Things always go wrong with construction.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re on it. There really is no one better for construction than the mob,” I replied.

“Don’t mention it,” Gloria waved a hand dismissively. “It’s good to put people to work. The number of people we have that don’t want to be in direct conflict is increasing and they need things to add value.”

“And everything else is going smoothly, I assume?” I pushed the beautiful mob princess.

“Smooth enough,” Gloria said, waffling her head. “Everyone’s continuing the training regimens you set before you disappeared. We’ve been able to convince most people that you’re just away training.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t hard to convince anyone,” Simone murmured.

I glanced over my shoulder at her, raising an eyebrow.

Simone laughed. “Oh, please. The guy who sticks his hand in fire and slowly poisons himself in the name of training? Nobody bats an eye at the idea that you’d sneak away to train aggressively. Although some may think you just want to have your way with me.”

“Wait a second.” Nyx looked up from where she was laying in my lap. “Are you guys going off to have sex whenever you say you’re training?”

“Oops.” Simone covered her mouth in a very unconvincing display of modesty. “Now you’ve ruined that one.”

I glanced at Simone with a raised eyebrow asking her to explain.

“Whatever shall I do?” she said, and went right back to rubbing my shoulders.

“But I do think this is a fantastic opportunity,” I continued as if that fact hadn’t just been brought up. “If everyone simply thinks that I have been busy training, then we can continue almost completely uninterrupted with our plans. The only difference is that I am now much stronger.”

Simone looked impossibly smug.

“Right.” Nyx nearly jumped in my lap. “Show us your new stats.”

With all of the bonuses I’d gotten, I was rather proud of the increases I’d earned and showed them off to Nyx.

[Name: Bran Heros - Hegemon of Rule

Level: 64

Class: Blood Hegemon SS

Status: Healthy

Strength: 6373

Agility: 5581

Vitality: 9072

Intelligence: 4271

Spirit: 17638

Skills:

Soul Gaze SSS 

Soul Resilience S 

Blunt Weapon Proficiency B 

Endurance A 

Throwing Proficiency D 

Blood Boil S

Blood Siphon S

Sanguine Slash B 

Bloodline Collection 493 

Immortal Body B 

Axe Proficiency D 

Charge B

Bloodink Quality SS 

Stealth D 

Inscription B 

Swim D (Bracer) 

Last Stand D 

Blood Hex S 

Blood Transfusion S 

Bloodiron Blade SS 

Crimson Barrier S 

Sword Mastery A

Worshiped B 

Sanguine Locking S  

Drop B (Sword) 

Soul Absorption Arts E 

Bloodline Manipulation SS 

Powers of Blood A 

Training F 

Primordial Titan Bloodline M 

Bloodrage Ascension C 

Primordial Confluence Titan Physique F]

At this point it had been a while since I shared my stats with the group. “I took my bloodline back. There’s no reason to keep it separate from me for now.” Not to mention the last reset had boosted me considerably and I’d gained sixty four levels since the fight with Vidar. It was almost a shame that I’d had to seek an immediate boost by absorbing those almost four hundred bloodlines for my collection and reset myself early. Otherwise, I would have liked to push higher before the reset.

At least my class abilities had all jumped a rank, the barrier between A and S was often one that didn’t go away simply by practice.

“Ooh.” Nyx made a noise of enjoyment as her eyes roved over my new sheet. “At this point, the tournament should be an absolute piece of cake for you, shouldn’t it?”

She looked up at me expectantly. I wasn’t nearly as happy about that fact as she was. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

I paused, letting out a breath. There was no reason to avoid the subject, regardless of how I felt. “There’s something bugging me in general. Sissy said that the Demon Lord was brought back with me.” Really, it only confirmed what I had already suspected, but it was still a problem.

The ladies in the room all nodded. “That is certainly unwelcome news,” Gloria said, hesitating. “But I have a feeling you’re about to bring up something far worse.”

“If he does have memories of the past life and everything that happened, then I have to assume he’s made greater plans than I’ve prepared to go up against.” Several of the women frowned and leaned forward as I laced my fingers together.

These thoughts had been cooking in the back of my mind for a while.

“If he has the same background, he should know all of the sects and where they are, depending on how long he’s been here operating with that prior knowledge. My concern is that a number of the sects could already be infected with demons, much like the Heavenly Fist.” I stated. The Demon King had started to act with prior knowledge when he trapped me in the vault, which meant that he’d had almost two years to shift his strategy.

“That would be a disaster if we were forced into a confrontation.” Gloria was the first to pick up on the real problem.

“Exactly,” I said. “Which, to be honest, is the whole point of the tournament. At this point, I might be setting a trap for myself rather than for the demons.”

Nyx looked up at me pleadingly while the other ladies sat in silence, all of them contemplating possible solutions. Nyx was still innocent in many ways, she looked to me and the others for what to do next. But the others were in clear calculation mode.

“Before we think too hard on this,” Gloria said, “let’s talk through the situation together.” She splayed her hands on the table, pushing a nail easily into the wood as she began to draw. “Let’s assume that the Demon Lord has infiltrated the other sects. Our first data point is going to be determining how deep his roots go. Does he just control middle management? Does he have the whole thing? Information ultimately wins most battles.”

I nodded. “The simple solution was to test them, but me running around to every sect could very well set off alarms. We aren’t ready to ring the bell,” I said. “We’ll give up too much of our own information in the process.”

“If the Demon King is already this far ahead, frankly, it doesn’t matter if we give away a little extra.” Gloria answered.

I sighed, still not liking the idea. “Okay, so we need to figure out who is the most pivotal to have on our side, beyond the Heavenly Fist sect, and check with them first,” I nodded.

Simone, ever helpful, handed me a pad of paper from the back of the couch and I began jotting down a quick list from memory.

“If we can check these three, their inclusion or lack thereof would be important. The question is who to send to get a good view, who will give us high confidence that we’ve confirmed whether they are or are not compromised?”

Unfortunately, the name that came to mind first was “Winnie.” I said it aloud. “But we probably need to send someone with her, at least to keep her cool. Apparently she’s a far looser cannon than I expected.”

Gloria huffed. “She’s lucky we haven’t killed her for the shit she pulled.” The way Gloria looked at me felt almost like a dare to make that threat reality.

“No,” I said. “We need Winnie, especially after going through the Trial of Kings. I think she can keep a lid on her temptations for now.” Her new title should be helpful in that regard.

“She can,” Simone said with more confidence than I felt. “And if she can’t, I’ll make sure to correct it before it becomes a problem.”

I glanced at Simone. “I hate to do this, but are you absolutely certain? Winnie isn’t a lightweight if she needs to be kept in check.”

Simone nodded. “Just let me handle it. I have confidence I can manage her at least in this.”

I wasn’t going to argue. “Then Winnie can go, and Simone can supervise. Between the two of you, I have faith you’ll suss out any demons in the mix.”

“As for you, Gloria,” I continued, “I think we need to start planning for additional complications to arise during the tournament. We will need contingencies. I’m not against playing dirty if we must, killing the enemy if it comes to that.”

“Contingencies, please I have that in spades,” Gloria said before I got any funny ideas. “We need to make sure that if we start this tournament and we’re surrounded by demons, they regret the day they tried to corner us.”

“They should already be regretting it, but we can make them regret it even more. Especially with the princess on board now,” Circe smirked. 

“Yeah,” Simone replied. “The princess is a tough cookie. I wouldn’t worry too much about putting her into a drag-out fight with most of these heavier hitters. If they try to turn the tournament into a trap for Bran, they’ll find themselves on the wrong side of the blades.”