Chapter 115: Blood Sacrifice to the Blood God

The crushing pressure suddenly lightened, but Maria felt no joy.

Because this was not weakness. It was the Forbidden Lord of Cinder deliberately drawing back most of his power, compressing it into his limbs and bones—like a steam-constrained reactor driven at full capacity. The force within him made Maria think of a volcano suppressed to its limit.

And once it erupted—mountains would shatter.

As sparks flared from the Forbidden Lord’s mouth, Lady Maria swept her longsword in a fluid arc, scattering several streaks of intercepting light. Her body drifted across the ground like a weightless black feather, sliding several meters back.

The next instant—

Fire! Boiling flame!

The breath of dragons—the apex predators at the top of the transcendent food chain—when loosed upon the land, was like a divine calamity plowing the earth to ash. No sane person would ever meet such a force head-on, not even in its weakened form.

A torrent of molten gold-red fire roared from the Forbidden Lord’s jaws, threaded with the undertone of a draconic roar. The rolling inferno swept clockwise across the battlefield, turning twenty meters of space into a flaming hellscape. The heat was so intense the ground melted into flowing magma.

Such overwhelming power could never be resisted by one of mere Iron Rank.

The dragon’s breath thundered on for half a minute, until the air itself stank of scorched flesh and charred stone. At the center of the warped haze, the Forbidden Lord stood unmoving, gazing quietly at the Farron Greatsword that had fought, wandered, and rested by his side. He knew his journey had reached its end.

This breath of fire—this was the last gift he could leave.

“Perhaps… there’s nothing left to regret.” His parched voice carried a note of release. His life had been full indeed.

He had the glory of linking the flame. He had comrades who fought by his side until death. He had lost his faith, only to find it again. And he was granted one last glance at this world. He was content.

That deliberate exhalation of dragonfire had drained nearly every ember of flame from his body.

He sank to his knees, powerless.

The magma-like cracks across his body dimmed and extinguished before the eye. Sustained only by the First Flame, the Forbidden Lord had crawled out from the river of time itself. Now, by his own hand, he ended it all. Beyond Lordran, the death of a Lord of Cinder was absolute.

But why?

Both the First Flame and Chaos demanded he kill his target. Yet, in the end, he chose to believe in himself—he chose to believe in the will of the Farron Undead Legion.

For a moment—

The Forbidden Lord heard familiar voices, countless strong, unruly, and warm voices behind him, walking past him toward the horizon. Stunned, he lifted his gaze and saw the Legion of Farron in their prime, setting out on another hunt to destroy the Abyss.

“Oi, what are you staring at?” A masked legionary stopped before him.

“Captain…?”

“You can mope all you want, Hawkwood. But now, you’d better stand tall. Everyone’s waiting for you to return.”

The legionaries ahead halted, glancing back with smiles at their tear-stained comrade struggling to rise. Their laughter guided Hawkwood, and he was swallowed into the pure light. There were tears, yes—but no fear.

“Whew…”

On the other side, sweat prickled down the back of the Black Coat. That dragon’s breath had been ruinous, a calamity in itself. Human flesh would vaporize instantly, and even steel would have melted under such force.

For all his power, even he dared not claim he could withstand that blow.

He couldn’t understand why the Forbidden Lord had suddenly unleashed his ultimate move, seemingly intent on burning himself out. Yet that swiftly fading aura could not be mistaken—

The Forbidden Lord of Cinder was, for all purposes, already dead.

One final strike was all it would take to scatter his body into ash. To think the life of a forbidden Lord of Cinder would end like this—strangely, the Black Coat felt an unexpected pang of respect… and sorrow.

No matter what else, he had once been a hero of the flame. Even if the gods stripped away his name and cast him down, his deeds could not be denied.

Just as the Black Coat wrestled with whether to grant him the final blow, a solemn voice rang from the heart of the scorched air—

“Blood. Radiant blood, source of life.”

The words boomed like a thunderclap, carrying a killing intent that promised execution even if one fell to their knees in supplication.

“Impossible?!” the Black Coat gasped, staring into the blood-mist swelling into existence. That primal malice burned against humanity itself, like fire consuming dry tinder.

“Blood spills—I descend. Blood flows—I live. Blood stills—I die.”

The voice sang praises to blood: its greatness, its sanctity as the source of all life, the sacred object worshiped by its faithful. The writhing mist of gore plunged into the Forbidden Lord’s remains. His body swelled, his skin turned a brutal crimson, and horns like those of a bull tore forth from his skull.

Explosive muscle bulged and split his armor, bare flesh gleaming like red granite under the firelight.

He could no longer be called a man. He was—

“A demon!”

Maria named it at once. With the Lord’s corpse as a vessel and by the gift of power, a daemon’s projection had been dragged from the Warp into the mortal world. And from the very words of its hymn, its patron god was made clear.

The strongest of the Four, the Lord of Skulls, the Blood God—Khorne!

The horned daemon stood tall, pointing first at the Black Coat, then at Maria.

“Arrogant pretenders, faithless wretches! You live only by the Blood God’s grace, yet know it not. By His gift alone do you draw breath!”

“The Lord of Storms, the Lord of Blood, demands your worship—and your skulls!”

Crushing the Farron Greatsword into scrap, the daemon conjured from crimson warp-energy a monstrous jagged axe, steaming breath snorting from its nostrils.

“Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!”