RD 3 Ch 50

I spat at the one-armed swordsman demon in front of me, jumping back to give myself space. I activated the Sanguine Locking, preparing for a second sweep.

To my shock, the demon broke out of my Sanguine Locking with ease. He moved fluidly to block my sword, rolling inside my guard before baring his teeth and aiming for my throat. 

I had just enough time to twist away, his teeth scraping past my neck and burying themselves in my shoulder.

Relief hit me. That bite was far too close for comfort, but this was still going to hurt. 

I twisted again, his teeth ripping out a huge chunk as I staggered back and put space between us. Once again, I tried to activate Blood Hex to slow him down, but his skin glowed red and he shattered my ability with ease, advancing on me once again. 

"When I have something to dispel your tricks, you're really quite easy, aren't you?" The demon mocked, closing within my guard and checking me with the blade of his sword, forcing me back as he put a long gash along my chest. 

"You think you've got this all figured out?" I shot back, buying time as my regeneration ticked along, mending the two heavy wounds enough that they didn’t interfere with my movements. I could let him damage me further and likely deal with him by using last stand. Fighting him would be trivial with that active, but I needed to save my strength for whatever General Zaydelin had in store.

Trump cards had to be saved until the last fight was happening. Otherwise, they were no good in the long run.

The demon came at me again, his sword flashing back and forth, forcing me to lose ground everytime I blocked.

I had to step back to get enough space, working against his faster speed. Yet, I kept myself calm, working the problem one step at a time. I activated Sanguine Locking once again, trying to see if there was a limit to how often he could break through my abilities. 

He only took a single step forward. A soft glow emitted before he broke my ability once again. 

I tried to scan through with Soul Gaze and understand which ability he was using, but he didn't give me time to think, much less read an exhaustive skill list.

Demons tended to have far too many skills, especially those that were older and had lived through multiple bodies. 

I backed out of the ruined structure, wading into the midst of what was quickly becoming a battlefield.

The one-armed demon saw what I was doing. He sidestepped my stall tactics, turning for one of the Mul Branova.

"Such a coward, you're going to go for others?" I activated Sanguine Locking, but he broke it a second later just like before. However, it was enough to regain enough ground on him to keep him from killing one of my Mul Branova from behind.

He spun around, matching my sword and resumed his press against me. "Figured out what I’m doing yet?" He mocked. As he activated a skill, jagged red and purple lightning ripped from the sky onto his sword. He swung a deadly blow right at me.

Now that I was amid the battlefield, dodging would only endanger my people. A crimson barrier snapped up around me, expanding and catching his blade.

My barrier didn't last long, shattering as his sword continued through. 

Simone's shimmering barrier was a step behind mine, the glittering shell pushing the lightning away from his sword, even though the blade was allowed to pass.

I blocked the sword, feeling nothing but his strength.

The lightning shattered Simone's barrier a second later.

I was able to slip to the side by that point, pushing the one-armed demon's sword away before the lightning joined it.

His ability crashed into the ground, scouring the earth in a ten-foot line of sizzling sparks. Most of the power had been directed down.

I felt my wounds start regenerating at an even faster pace. Simone was apparently now paying attention to my fight. And the lovely woman was intent on keeping me alive. 

"How can I be a coward when you're the one who's getting help?" The demon mocked.

"Just because people like me better than you isn't a reason to be upset." I dodged a quick strike as he lashed out at me with a furious expression on his hideous face. "Looks like that comment stung." I dodged backwards as he came at me with another flurry of strikes.

His strength and agility were above mine. To a point he was right, without my tricks it was going to be hard for me to defeat him. 

"In truth, I’m not against whatever it takes to kill you.” I slipped a talisman out of my spatial ring as he closed in on me again, activating it in a blinding flash. The move wasn't ideal, considering I had allies around who would also be blinded, but it was certainly enough to make the demon blink.

As his own vitality fought to restore his vision. It seemed he wasn’t able to get rid of this so easily. I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he had a high ranked basic movement ability. I had seen it before.

Some took an incredibly simple and perhaps not an overly useful ability, but then practiced it over and over on a high ranked target until it progressed to a higher rank. If it was SS or SSS, then they could overcome lower ranked control abilities even if they were at a stat disadvantage. 

Given the way he always took a step to break out of the hold, I had to assume that he had a high ranked simple movement ability.

The demon stabbed his sword into the ground. Demonic lightning exploded around him to force me back.

But I ignored the blast, stepping in closer and thrusting my blade into his gut before I spat a Blood Bolt at his face.

He coughed and jerked away as I twisted my sword and pulled the weapon back out. As his vision came back to him, there was blood on his face.

I activated Sanguine Curse Blood Hex and an inscription began to form along his brow, coating his eyes in darkness. 

"Oh, did you not like that one?" I said, jumping away from his blind swings before stepping back in. I thrust into his thigh before cutting a gruesome wound across his leg. "That ought to slow you down." 

"Screw you," the demon spat, jumping as far as he could before stabbing his sword down in the soil and exploding the area around him with more of that demonic lightning. This time he managed to catch two of the Mul Branova. The women were sent flying as they screamed in pain. 

The blind, one-armed demon chuckled and jumped away again, spinning in erratic slashes, sending abilities chaotically through the battlefield to protect him as he worked to heal himself with a potion.

A giant fist of ice gathered up and tried to snatch him. Its fingers closed around him, but he reacted quickly and severed them.

A tornado of wind whipped up around the fist, enclosing him within it.

Merlin and Circe were working together, their wind and frost stirring through the battlefield and trapping the one-armed demon. 

I paused my pursuit and cut down several other nearby demons as I barreled through the battlefield to protect the two Mul Branova that had been knocked away. Right now, my job was to be a shield for all of the weaker members of the group. 

Simone was at my side, quickly casting heals on the downed members of the Mul Branova before casting a worried glance my way. 

"It's fine. Those two should be able to finish him off. He's not an immediate threat to any of the stronger members of our group. However, he could throw enough chaos into the battlefield that we would lose a few of your followers," I told Simone. 

Simone pouted as she crouched over, healing them while I stood to the side, acting as a barrier.

Throughout the battlefield there were several blood avatars of mine. Interestingly enough, while I wasn't consciously controlling them, by the way they moved they had my same fighting instinct. It was as if the Mul Branova had tapped into my skills but not my conscious thought. 

Seeing that the two women were now stable, I stepped away, moving quickly through the battlefield, breaking up any encirclements of my followers and quickly crushing any demon that was locked in relatively equal combat with one of the Mul Branova. 

Battles often seemed like forever, but in reality, less than fifteen minutes had passed.

As the demons were downed, the only sounds left after the echoes of ringing steel were the ladies cooing in excitement as they picked up their loot. The demons had dropped the standard loot one would expect. After all, the system heavily rewarded the killing of demons.

"Skill books!" Jenny shouted, holding up two new skill books in her possession. 

I chuckled. "Welcome to killing demons. They drop skill books far more often than monsters. Not to mention, any actual gear they had drops as well." 

A few of the demons that had possessed humans had spatial rings, and the Mul Branova who had taken on the more elite demons were already starting to parse through the rings.

My attention, however, shifted over to the giant frozen fist with the battered one-armed demon still inside.

Circe floated in the air like a goddess of wind while Merlin was surrounded by spikes of ice like some sort of queen of frost.  It was obvious the two of them were powerful, though they both turned to me as I approached. 

"Do you want him alive or dead?" Circe asked. The wind slowly died down around her as her dress stopped flapping and her hair settled down around her shoulders. Somehow, despite all of the wind, her soft blue hair was still put together. 

"I don't think he's any good to us alive. Just kill him. Let's get the experience. After all, he was a decently high-level demon," I replied. 

Before Circe could act, a spike of ice thrust up through the demon and out his mouth, impaling him. On the edge of my vision, system messages popped up as I leveled up several times, getting some credit for that kill. 

"I got the other one before it could escape," Merlin turned to me. "That's why I was so late in helping you." For some reason she felt the need to give an excuse. She waved off to the side, and two ice golems marched up. Between them, they held the frozen demon that General Zaydelin's soul had been inside.

I laughed, rubbing my hands together. "Perfect, you two. Absolutely perfect. We'll clean up here and get moving shortly." I bit my finger and began drawing inscriptions straight on the ice. It was dry enough that I didn't think it was going to be melting and ruining my work anytime soon. 

Both of the ladies from legend crowded in to see my work. "What will this do?" Merlin asked, tilting her head.

"Well, thankfully the body is pretty weak so it won't take much to penetrate any defenses it has for the soul. Not to mention, this piece of General Zaydelin is but a fragment of his power.

“But the inscription here is both to dull his mind and awareness in case he has some way of breaking through. After that, I am trying to connect to the soul inside the body using the third section of this inscription." 

My work quickly began to encompass a large portion of the ice. This certainly wasn't something I could do without the demon immobilized. Even then, it was going to take me a considerable amount of time to get all the pieces up and running. 

"Once all that's done, the hard part will be trying to get this soul to locate its other halves. He has a hive mind, but I am not sure if they're halves or if they're almost a sibling relationship. It's going to take a little trial and error to see which of these inscriptions will work best. It's not like I can actually harmonize blood to blood like you would for finding twins or familial relationships." I answered.

"You can do that?" Circe asked. 

"Of course. Inscriptions can do anything, it just takes the right resources. Thankfully my blood helps with that." I told them.

Merlin frowned from the side. "You still never let me inspect you," she said. 

"He's a vampire," Simone said, walking up to the conversation. "If you just assume he's a vampire and he can do anything, then the rest will make sense." 

Merlin raised an eyebrow. "Vampire?" 

"Not a vampire," I sighed, shaking my head. "My class is called... Blood Hegemon. And it grows stronger with the more bloodlines I add to one of its foundational abilities." 

Circe stood to the side, quietly listening while nodding along, Merlin glanced at her, only to focus back on me. 

"The Heros Clan is really the place for you, then. I can't think of any ability that has to deal with bloodlines finding a better fit." Merlin told me.

I grunted in agreement. "After sampling a large number of bloodlines from the Clan and elsewhere, I have managed to upgrade my blood to S-Rank. So, I can use it as a material all the way up to S-Rank Talismans." 

I stopped talking as I got to the tricky part of the inscription. I had to start chaining several B-Ranked inscriptions into each other for the effect that I wanted. The combination took up a lot of space. I needed to be careful in my design.

When I stopped talking, the conversation continued between the ladies, but I managed to tune it out to work.

Moving carefully, I came out of my focus as I finished with a flourish, the last swirl settling into place.

The inscriptions began to glow on the ice, the red glow penetrated through and left a mark on the demon body inside. A moment later, one of eight indicator inscriptions began to glow.

I chuckled deviously."I've got him. General Zaydelin should be that way." I pointed in the direction the inscription indicated. "Now, let's hurry up and get out of here."