RD 2 Ch 41

Chapter 41

The second general’s calm wasn’t broken by my transformation. Instead, he summoned a new form while shielding himself. “Big one, aren’t you? I didn’t know I was in the Borrson Clan.” He laughed. His body language the definition of arrogance.

I collided with a minotaur that matched me in size.

My blood splashed all over it, and I drew on Blood Hex as inscriptions wrapped around the figure, hitting it with half a dozen curses to slow it down and weaken it.

All the while, more blood was still trying to reach me and fuel this transformation. It just kept coming, streaming through the air and into my back.

The Tide of Terror was a terrible fight for my abilities. He was able to summon tides of enemies to stall out battles.

I needed to end this quickly.

Grabbing the minotaur by the horns, I jerked it to the side, and with a little momentum gained, I stepped into a spin that lifted the summon off its feet and slammed it into the general’s own barrier.

The minotaur disappeared before it could do more than crack the barrier, but my blood blade came down a second later and finished shattering the barrier.

The general grabbed onto my blade which had lost most of its force breaking the barrier and sent jags of black lightning over it and into me.

I roared in pain but slammed my fist into him through it all. I had dealt with far worse pain.

The general flew back, smashing into a building and liberally painted in my blood as I activated Sanguine Locking. He twitched and moved like it pained him before shouting on his own and breaking my locking. “You’re going to be trouble.” He pointed, and a demon juggernaut appeared mid-charge, flying at me.

“A juggernaut.” I chuckled as I raised my sword overhead and met the charge with a heavy blow.

This wasn’t a real juggernaut, and the summon only barely managed to block my strike before the weight of my attack banished it into swirling darkness.

“Die!” I charged the demon general while actively trying to suppress the bloodline he possessed to weaken him.

He blocked my sword with a summoned shield, but my other fist slipped around and smashed him into the ground as inscriptions raced along his form.

The demon ripped at his armor, raking clawed fingers through the neat lines and destroying the inscriptions. “Foul creature.” He hissed, and several swirling giant serpents appeared from his magic and tried to constrict me.

Yet arrows hit them, and two of the serpents turned to stone while the rest slowed to a crawl.

I smashed the two made of stone and sent the chunks flying at the general before raising my sword high and trying to cut through all the defenses at once.

Rather, a shield appeared in his hand from a spatial ring, and he jumped, letting my strike fling him backwards as a giant bird summon scooped him out of the air.

A second figure joined him on the bird as he summoned hundreds of gargoyles that swept down behind them.

“Damnit!” I cursed and smashed through the gargoyles before retreating as my skin began to dry up and steam rose off me as my form started to shrink.

Notably, there was no more blood coming from my surroundings to fuel this form.

I pulled out the lion hat and roared into the air at the gargoyles, stunning a number of them so that I could quickly smash through them as my form continued to recede.

Unfortunately, the move didn’t matter. Halfway through clearing the way, all of the summons vanished as the general got away.

I sagged, letting go of Bloodrage Ascension and shrinking in on myself until I was myself. Then I shriveled up, my skin sucking in like I was starved and dehydrated.

“Bran!” Simone was on me in a moment, giving me a Soothing Kiss and trying to heal me.

“Thank you, but this is just going to take a few minutes to wear off.” I sat down. With the summons gone, the elites could take back the clan by the time that I recovered.

Wind buffeted me as Circe landed next to me. “That was a showing.”

“Lost the guards sent with me,” I apologized. “Also, where’s Persephone?”

Circe frowned before glancing over the clan as a whole. “We lost a lot today. I don’t know. She might have left.”

I shook my head. “Interrogated one of the demons that attacked my boat. This whole thing was to get Persephone and attack Tartarus. She has something down there that they desperately want. The whole organization below the clan was supposed to be for them to spy and try to discover the location. Given that we sealed the islands after that, they knew Persephone would be trapped here with everyone else.”

Circe’s red eyes flashed dangerously, and she disappeared in a whirlwind.

I groaned and just lay down. The backlash for using that ability made just sitting up ache like I was an old man.

“You kicked butt.” Nyx flashed me a thumbs-up. “Why was that guy so tough, though?”

“Lots of powerful summons,” I said. “I had to break through quickly. Otherwise, he could tie me up in summons and stay back. He’s the second general of the Demon Lord’s army. Meaning, he’s up there in strength. Besides the Demon Lord himself, he might be the strongest in a large-scale battle situation.”

Nyx gave me a slight look as if asking how I knew everything I was saying, but then she dismissed the question. It had just become part of who I was, or she was too trusting.

I would have to tell her about everything soon. “If that fight had gone any longer, Hercules probably would have killed his opponent and quickly helped Zeus and then me. I was just enough that he could keep me busy with summons. That second figure who escaped on the bird, though… most likely dealt with Persephone in the chaos and extracted information about Tartarus.”

“If they know where Tartarus is, then we’re against the clock,” Simone said.

I shrugged. “What can we do? Persephone was so confident that she made herself the biggest liability. We quite literally had no idea where Tartarus was. Those two demons are now likely going to deal with it. Good news is he’s probably spent a decent portion of the army he had. This whole thing and all the husks under the island were probably for Tartarus.”

It wasn’t completely hopeless, but we were certainly in a pinch.

Zeus landed next to me, his toga in tatters and lighting crackling off him a moment before Hercules also arrived with a glowing golden body.

The big golden man laughed as his glow started to fade. “Now that was an ability. How long’s the recoil?”

“Equal to the time spent.” I sighed.

“Poor ratio.” Zeus rubbed his chin. “But that was impressive.” He looked around. “Where’s Circe?”

“Off to find Persephone. That’s why they were here. My boat was attacked. I got one of the demons and interrogated him. Tartarus is using a powerful demon artifact.”

Circe reappeared holding a limp Persephone who she dropped like a sack. “She’s out cold.”

I used Soul Gaze. “Her soul is injured. At least she’s not possessed. It could be several times worse.” I ignored all the looks.

“What demon artifact?” Zeus asked. “Why now?”

“In less than two years, the demons are coming.” I didn’t bother with excuses. I was tired. I thought I’d have more time to prepare, but here I was, already trudging my way through demon armies. “When they come, they’ll come through nine Hell Gates. Each Hell Gate is a big portal, but to hold the portal, there are nine big black stone stabs covered in enchantments.” I glanced at Hercules. He was of the same generation as Persephone.

The big man nodded. “There was something like that being researched in the clan. It disappeared a few years before Tartarus was founded. You could be onto something, but it does beg the question as to why you know all of this. We have made… accommodations to watch you to see where all of this is going, but it is quite suspicious especially with the demon attack.”

I started to lie again before sighing. “The system helped me come back in time. Long story short, the demons won. We were all far too ill-prepared, and there were demons embedded in just about every initiated organization. Instead, I lived through The Rapture… that’s what people called it. I rose to be one of the most powerful and one of the last humans left alive.”

All three leaders blinked at me stupidly for a moment.

“None of that matters, though. What you need to know is that my greatest goal is preparing everyone for the oncoming demons…” I trailed off, turning to look at the state of the clan.

It wasn’t quite in ruins, but there were smoldering fires, wrecked buildings, and lots of crying clan members.

“… I don’t think the Heros Clan is going to forget this or have a problem gearing up to fight the demons in the future. Not that I wanted this, but it's an improvement from last time when Tartarus was wiped out without the rest of the clan knowing about the loss. Just one day it was gone, and no one ever spoke of it again.” I took a breath, gathering myself for what was to come next. “Instead, right now we have a chance to save Tartarus and possibly deal a heavy blow to the oncoming demonic army.”

“What blow?” Circe asked.

“If we get that Hell Gate anchor, we can set the mother of all traps for demons coming through. Heck, we could farm them like a high-level instance.” I grinned viciously.

Hercules chuckled darkly. “I like that idea. It still means we have to find Tartarus’ location.”

I pulled a talisman from my spatial ring. “Either I can go in and get it out of her, or perhaps one of you could go in. Though, I’d recommend against that. The demon probably messed her up quite a bit.”

“How does you going in make it better?” Zeus asked. “You’re already holding the clan’s future in your skills, or are you going to tell me that you’re more skilled at this than me?”

“Take a look at my spirit stat and then the skills I’m showing you.” I let him inspect me, pushing aside anything more than my stat block and a few of the skills that would help me.

Zeus’ white brows, which I was starting to think were magically dyed, furrowed deep. “How?”

“Soul went back in time, not my body. So, there you have it. Anyway, is someone else going or am I?” I held the talisman out.

Everything was now out in the air for the leaders of the Heros Clan and I’d just have to trust that they would let me do what I could.

When none of them reached out for it, I slapped it on my wrinkled forehead and shifted Persephone’s body before headbutting her.

***

“What now?” Zeus asked, turning to Simone.

“We wait.” Simone was happy to adjust Bran so that he’d be comfortable next to Persephone. He just needed to keep contact with her, so Simone laced their fingers like a pair of lovers.

It was a secure way to keep them connected, and Simone would do whatever was safest for Bran. Persephone unfortunately was a little less interesting. The woman wasn’t evil, but she was fickle to an extreme. You had to know yourself and, more importantly, what you want out of another person to fall in love.

Simone’s eyes slid to the young Nyx at that thought.

Bran clearly had written Nyx off because of her tender age of eighteen. Though, Nyx had proved quite mature. Certainly a follower and not a leader. With Bran that was probably for the best. He wasn’t much of a follower, not at all.

Nyx would be competent at fewer skills, but over time, she would be a very valuable companion.

That, and Simone really wanted to see what those snakes did when Bran made her cum buckets with his massive cock.

“I’ll watch over them,” Circe offered. “I think you two have a clan to round up and get back to fixing.”

“Oh. By the way, did Bran say what happened to my baby?” Zeus asked Simone.

“Hmm?” She tilted her head.

“His boat.” Circe huffed.

Simone split a giant smile to hide her nerves. “No clue. It was a battlefield, and the whole docks were smashed.”

“Yes. But my baby was out with him away from all of this. When he wakes up, be sure to ask him where it is so I can go pick it up. Even for me, the thing was quite expensive.” Zeus gave her an overwide smile.

“Sure sure.” Simone nodded long enough for him and Hercules to zip off.

“That boat is toast, isn’t it?” Circe asked.

“Pretty sure. I really don’t see Bran fighting on something as fragile as a yacht and it not ending up in pieces. Besides, I think he swam here. He was wet.” Simone chuckled and remembered it was Bran. He’d find some way out of Zeus’ wrath.