CHAPTER 94: BLOOD COCOON

Anton Orlock’s hands shook from how hard he gripped the armrests of his black throne and then he was throwing his head back and letting out a cry to summon every single Vampire in the Black Castle to the Throne Room.

He spoke in a language Caius didn’t understand and he had a feeling it only had meaning to Anton himself and his forces because his consorts looked rallied and their dark robes moved against their bodies like they were ready to spread out like wings so they could join in the coming battle.

Hundreds of feet were hitting the ground all over the Castle making their way to the Throne room in some sort of stampede. In a massive horde of numbers that had shocked Caius even though he knew, from [To Kill A Demon Lord...] how much Vampires Anton had in his command and how much work it had taken for Caius and Aurelius in the story to get rid of them before they could even truly approach the Black Castle.

But that had involved them having allies. It had involved days of battles on multiple fronts and the loss of many lives.

Here, as far as Caius could see, it was only Athenodora. It would be only her against that massive horde. Yet, Anton did not look relaxed. If anything, his expression was filled with dread.

Athenodora didn’t look like she gave a damn about the call or the multitude coming over. Why would she be worried? She had asked for it, after all.

She turned away from Anton with a smile and walked over to Caius.

"What’s with that look?" She asked, "I came to save you."

"You used me as bait," Caius pointed out.

"Yes, I did," Athenodora said and there was a callous look in her eyes that Caius interpreted as her saying, ’And I’ll do it again.’

"I could have died." He said.

Athenodora shrugged.

"Ehn, Anton might be an obsessive Blood experimentation fanatic but he prefers living specimens. Blood from the dead is less appealing. I agree with him on that as I’m sure other Vampires would as well.

I was sure you’d be fine until I came for you.

And let’s assume you did die, it would have been in service of your Mother, so would it have been all that bad?

A good son would take pride in it."

Caius looked at her face. He couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. He decided she was and he didn’t have a response.

The first few Vampires came through the large doorway now and Athenodora looked over at them with a welcoming smile better she looked back at Caius,

"We’ll talk more later. Mommy has to work now."

She pressed her lips to Caius’ forehead then and when she stepped away, he realized a Blood red spell circle had appeared underneath his feet.

Blood surged out from the spell circle and wrapped him in a standing oval that looked like a Cocoon. A Blood cocoon.

The cocoon was only roomy enough for Caius to turn around in it. He was glad he wasn’t particularly claustrophobic or it would have been hell to stand in.

The cocoon was also thin enough that Caius could look through it and see what was happening outside clearly enough even though it was all tinged in red.

"You’ll be safe in there till I’m done," Athenodora said showing that sound traveled into the cocoon very well.

Almost as soon as she said that, the cocoon was put to the test by multiple attacks of various elements that all blended so much together that Caius could barely tell them apart. They all failed against the surface of the cocoon and it held strong while Athenodora spread her arms and cast spell circles before thrusting them forward to summon spikes composed of Blood.

At least ten Vampires were stabbed by the Spikes and their eyes widened in horror as it sank into their bodies and mixed into their bloodstream. They could all tell it was dangerous and tried to fight it with their Mana but were failing at it.

Athenodora clenched her hands into fists.

*BANG!*

With simultaneous explosive sounds, all Vampires stabbed by the spikes exploded from the inside out in a gory mess. But while their innards splashed onto the faces of their brethren, their blood didn’t splatter onto the ground. They floated completely under the control of Athenodora.

This was her Unique Element; Blood Magic.

As many as the characters that were introduced in [To Kill A Demon Lord...], no one else possessed this Element. At least, not without technically stealing it from Athenodora, and even then, they could never use it as well as she could.

This was why facing her, scared Anton Orlock so much.

Besides the fact that she was powerful, magically and physically, and had far more years of experience and knowledge than he could even dream of, her Blood Magic seemed like a natural enemy for him since the very basis of his self-improvement was through Blood experiments.

As it was, the Blood Athenodora controlled from the Vampires she had killed had been enhanced and as disgusting as she found its scent and as much as she would never want that thing in her body, she did acknowledge its strength. Using that blood, she didn’t even need to go all out with her own Mana.

She formed spikes from the blood of her kills and stabbed them at the Vampires still trooping into the Throne Room. They were wiser now, having learnt from the fallen so they had shields erected as well as movement spells to move out of the way so most of the spikes hit walls and doors instead.

At the same time that the spikes were missing them, the Vampires were already firing out their prepared counters, unleashing powerful spells at Athenodora that even struck against the cocoon Caius was in. The combined effects of those spells were so intense that Caius threw his hands up and looked ready to cast a defense spell but the cocoon stood strong.

That was yet another sign of many that Athenodora had nothing to worry about. After all, if the Cocoon she created could endure all those attacks, then surely, she could as well.

Indeed, when she had a hand thrust forward, her spell circle revolved to collect the blood of her kills and congeal it all into a shield that protected her from all the attack spells regardless of whatever angles they came from.

The Vampires did not relent. They had the numbers on their side so they could never really get tired without others readily taking over. They bombarded Athenodora so much that she was completely obscured from view. But they knew she was there. Their spells being resisted told them so.

But then, from behind the focus of their attacks, at the point they couldn’t see, something slashed out. It moved so fast that many of the Vampires thought it had been a trick of the light from the torches on the throne room wall that had been flickering and looked close to being snuffed out from the overwhelming amount of Magical energy being let out in the room.

Alas...

*Pstsish—*

.... Blood began to spill from multiple necks and heads began to slide off shoulders.

Whatever had swung out—too fast to see—had beheaded more than a dozen Vampires in a single move.

The eyes of the survivors widened before that thing flashed again and most of those still firing out spells saw blood spill from their forearms before the pain set in as they realized it had been sliced in two.

"Ah—" Most of them opened their mouths to yell but the thing flashed again and their heads were split in two vertically before they slumped to the ground dead.

Quickly, the ones still alive, driven by self-preservation, transitioned from attacking spell-casting to defensive.

Alas, whatever was swinging and reaping lives, sliced clean through their shields and cut them in two at their midsections.

This time though, others finally caught sight of what was killing them;

It was a Blood Scythe that, instead of having a handle, had a tendril that was attached to the second spell circle on Athenodora’s other hand while the other hand kept up the defensive spell that easily survived their bombardment of spells.

But that wasn’t all.

They thought the Blood scythe had suddenly moved so slowly and that was why they had been able to catch sight of it. But that wasn’t the case.

In actuality, everyone who had been killed had seen their Blood siphoned and added to the Blood Scythe and whenever it got to a particular size, it would split up into two. That had happened so many times now that there were just too many Scythes that it was frankly impossible for the Vampires not to manage to see at least one of them.

At least before they were sliced up and their blood joined to continue creating more Blood Scythes so Athenodora could continue her delightful carnage.