Dragon Gods Reign

[On the battlefield]

At the same time as Alicia was fighting Isaiah, Jennia and Allaire were tearing through one vampire after another. Over the years they had become quite adept at fighting together, having seen the other's fighting style often enough during training to know it by heart. This resulted in the duo being in a far more advantageous situation than if they had fought half their opponents each.

While Jennia was rushing ahead and straight into the thick of the fight, Allaire stopped about a hundred meters from their opponents and lifted her bow.

Looking on as vampires, monsters, and bloodline sorcerers all turned in surprise to where they had broken out of the forest, she waited for the first of them to react. But for a moment nothing happened, with Jennia's presence confusing them enough to keep them from acting. Their world may have some beast presence, but it only consisted of evolved animals.

Thus it took a few seconds before some connected her presence to Darganth's, with those individuals quickly getting ready to also fight her. The rest were still not willing to strike first, unsure of her allegiance and unwilling to turn her against them.

Seeing this, one vampire realized that only very few of the hundred or so fighters present were even considering striking first, with even those few hesitating.

Gnashing his teeth at this, he decided to take the risk.

Pushing off of the ground and turning into a blurred streak that shot towards Jennia, he stood out to Allaire and consequently became her first target.

Letting go of the arrow she had drawn back, she let the aura loaded projectile soar toward her target.

Disregarding her, the approaching vampire just sent an arrow made of its own blood to intercept, believing it to be enough. This confidence quickly faltered when the two projectiles met and Allaire's arrow quickly tore through the blood construct.

Due to his prior confidence, the vampire had continued moving along the same path, leading to her arrow still striking him.

“Urghh.” Grunting in pain, the man tried to push through the pain that ran down along his left side

This attempt didn't last long as his left leg gave in as soon as he took the next step with it. Suddenly being without two legs caused the vampire to drop down to the ground uncontrollably. His substantial momentum only contributed further to this, causing him to slither and roll over the ground for a few seconds.

Finally coming to a stop after multiple meters, he needed a moment to get rid of the shaky feeling his fall caused. Pushing his body out of the pile of dirt he was burrowed under, he tried to stand up. Realizing in shock that his entire left leg was unresponsive, he looked down to see it only hanging on a few muscle fibers.

Gritting his teeth but showing little concern, he looked up to see what happened in the battle.

Immediately he noticed Jennia surrounded by about a dozen enemies, consisting of mostly monsters and vampires as the bloodline sorcerers were on their way to Alicia. Swarming her like a group of flies, they tried their best to inflict any damage on her massive body.

But despite their best efforts, each attack left only a shallow wound on her body. Spears of blood that were hurled at her barely reached half a meter deep before being stopped by her muscles, while the claws and bites of the monsters barely reached deeper than her skin.

The only substantial wound on her body were four gashes across her side, likely caused by the only large combatant on their side. Said monster, which had been transformed from a rare second rank beast and thus came close to her in size, now lay a few dozen meters from her, dead.

Watching the battle as he healed, the vampire quickly realized that his kind and their allies were especially ill-suited to deal with large beasts. Only a couple of them relied mainly on blood manipulation and mana, with the rest preferring to use their claws and fangs.

Thus, even though they could evade Jennia quite well by using her size against her, they had only the two high order bloodline sorcerers left to truly threaten her.

This was something that Jennia was also aware of, leading to her mainly targeting the two and preventing them from acting on it.

Contemplating how to best use his new-found realization to turn the tide and gain access to the source of high quality blood, untainted by phoenix lineage, that her body represented, he was suddenly ripped out of his thoughts when a streak of light shot out from seemingly nowhere.

Watching with horrified eyes as the attack easily dispatched off one of the bloodline sorcerers, he turned left towards its source. With his eyes glowing red as he used his blood vision to look there, he grimaced as he saw Allaire's outline.

When she turned to look at him a moment later this turned to shock. Quickly trying to scurry away in fear, his still mangled leg left him with no chance. Despite learning from his earlier mistake and doing his best to dodge her arrow, it still found its mark and bore through his head.

“Oh, nearly missed one.” Allaire murmured as she turned her attention back to Jennia.

Compared to the latter’s wild laughter, she only looked on disinterested. Intervening only when necessary, she went back to helping Jennia have her fun.

For about a minute it continued like this, with Allaire barely taking the fight seriously and only intervening when necessary. But by then the fighters from other parts of the battlefield started arriving in larger numbers, no longer just managing to replace those that were killed by her and Jennia.

And when the three individuals that had previously fought Isaiah arrive, she knew she had to become more active.

“Playtime is over, we've got three dangerous ones incoming.” She said with a mana enhanced voice.

Turning one of her heads to look at the three individuals sprinting towards her, Jennia quickly gauged their strengths.

“Haa, then let's wrap this up.” She said with a sigh.

Her words alarmed the individuals currently attacking her, prompting them to put some distance between them and her.

But instead of attacking them, Jennia shrank her body until she only measured about ten meters from head to tail. While this massively reduced her range, her necks and heads only measuring a bit over three and a half meters, it also massively reduced the blind spots from which her enemies could attack without being in the range of her heads.

Realizing that she stopped playing with them, some of the people around her involuntarily stepped back in fear.

And before they knew it, her body had become hued in external aura that catapulted her strength and speed into a wholly different league. Becoming little more than a greenish streak as she dashed towards one of them, her target's allies only realized what had happened when she had already bit off his head.

At the same time, she used all six of her elements, becoming surrounded by multiple projectiles of each one.

Allaire also got serious and prepared herself for the following confrontation, with her form materializing out of invisibility. But only Jennia and a couple of vampires noticed that her real body stood a meter to the side of this illusion, though of the latter none warned the rest lest they spread panic.

Taking a quick look at Alicia to see how she was doing, Jennia saw her slowly being pushed back by the bloodline sorcerers. Looking up to see Darganth clashing with Lucius, she decided to quickly free enough room to at least be able to aid her if needed.

'Can you keep the small fry at bay?' She telepathically asked Allaire.

'Could be a bit challenging, but I'll try.' The latter answered in the same way.

With the decision made, the projectiles around Jennia turned into a few dozen streaks that each shot toward one of the individuals she deemed to be more powerful. But before they could hit their intended targets, an impossibly large amount of blood flowed out of one of the vampires, morphing into a wall to block her attacks.

When they struck, the portions of the barrier were easily punctured, but in the process, the projectiles also lost their entire strength.

“A mere beast underestimates us this much?” The vampire that had created the barrier scoffed.

“Considering that I have yet to see a reason to stop it, of course.” Jennia answered with a taunting grin.

Hearing a few laughs of ridicule from her opponents, Jennia sighed in annoyance. But considering that from her estimates four or five of her opponents reached the peak third rank in power, she knew where they came from.

So instead of directly acting on her frustration, she reached out to her mana bound armor. During its creation, Darganth had added some features on it that allowed it to also work in her true form, something she used at that moment.

Materializing out of nothingness, the armor expanded across her body, mainly reinforcing her legs, chest, underbelly, and the bases of her necks.

While she did this, her opponents didn't remain motionless, springing into action and rushing at her.

Before her armor even fully materialized, Jennia was already faced with a handful attacks flying her way. Dodging out of the way of the first blood spear, she willed her mana into action and conjured a sphere of darkness around herself.

Waiting until the salvo of attacks fully dissolved in the corrosive mass of darkness, she willed it to expand until an area of over a kilometer around her was covered by a thin veil of it.

'We'll see how long you can continue to look down on me.' Jennia thought with a vicious grin.

After taking a moment to adjust to the new lack of most senses due to her spell, she expanded her mana sense to its fullest. Contrary to everybody else's, hers freely spread through the dark expanse and gave her a full overview of the situation.

Seeing the confusion among her opponents, Jennia chose to exacerbate it by picking off the weaker ones among them. And as her estimates put only five of them at her level of power, she had quite a few to choose from.

Finding one vampire relatively central among the fourteen individuals trapped in her spell, she dashed toward him.

Approaching quickly, Jennia soon entered into the women's limited perception range, causing her to swirl around in shock.

“Ahhh.” Shouting involuntarily, the vampire reacted quickly as she sent an arrow made from her own blood at Jennia.

Easily dodging this projectile, the latter clad her claws in powerful flames before swinging them at the women in passing.

Falling to her knees with a confused look, the female vampire didn't get the time to fully process what happened as her life slipped away. Collapsing fully, her burning body lay there in complete darkness.

Jennia had already put about a hundred meters between herself and the body. Dismissing the flames around her claw to stop herself from being noticeable even through the veil she had conjured, she eyed the area around the woman's corpse, ready to ambush whoever would reach it first.

It took barely a couple of seconds before a group of two, one vampire and one monster, slowly entered the area. Sneaking closer to them, she soon was able to listen in to their conversation.

“Fuck, she got one of your kind.” The monster said when it finally saw the vampire's corpse.

Growling in response, the vampire accompanying it rushed toward his fallen comrade. Hesitating for a moment when he saw the flames still burning on her body, he reached out and drowned them in a small ball of blood.

“Watch out for a second, I'll need all the power I can get.” He said.

Placing his palm on the wound, he drew all blood that remained in the woman towards him. Grimacing slightly due to the lack of assimilation as he didn't drink it but instead absorbed it through his skin before directly transferring it into the blood storage in his heart, he nonetheless pushed through it.

When he finished the process a few seconds later, he reopened his eyes with a new-found boldness.

“With this, we won't have to worry about me running out of pow-” He started, only to stop abruptly when he turned around to find the monster accompanying him missing.

Instantly switching to high alert, he spun around with a slightly panicked expression. A moment later he saw a short flash of flames around fifty meters from him.

Rushing there with little hesitation, he nonetheless found only a carcass that has been burned to near unrecognizably. Nonetheless recognizing the monster he had grouped up with, he was shaken by the power necessary to leave such a result in just the two seconds it took him to arrive.

Before he could think further about this, another vampire arrived inside his perception range, followed by two more as well as one monster. All four momentarily froze upon noticing no signs of struggle from the victim but they quickly recollected themselves.

“If only this shitty veil wouldn't slow us down.” One of the new arrivals cursed.

With the others murmuring in agreement, the vampire that had said this was just about to speak further when the first one, Vernon, interrupted.

“We can complain later, now we all need each other to get out of this alive. That beast managed to drag him away from right behind me, so I need to be sure that we can trust each other to watch our backs.” He said, letting his gaze wander through the round.

Seeing all three vampires and the monster react with shock to his revelation, he smiled inwardly.

'There will be quite a few lord spots open after this, you'll be my ticket to one of those.' He thought, making sure to keep a concerned and frightened appearance.

After a moment a female vampire with the appearance of a young woman spoke up.

“I'm in, I just want to survive this.” She said in resignation.

“If he decided to trust you, then I can too.” The monster, a humanoid man with scaled skin and mismatched limb proportions, said.

Nodding with a fake smile of gratitude, took a moment to try and remember the two. Recognizing the monster as one of the more powerful ones and as one of the few that had managed to kill a high order member, he couldn't be happier with the coincidence.

Despite not even remembering ever having seen the female vampire's face, he accepted both as valuable subordinates.

Turning towards the two still undecided vampires, he pressured them with his gaze.

But before they could come to a decision, the group heard a scream from close by, quickly followed by a pillar of fire just two dozen meters away from them.

Hurriedly moving together into a circle, they focused their perception on the dark expanse with tense eyes.

For a few seconds after nothing happened, with the slight shaking in Vernon's fingers subsiding during this. Still, he didn't dare to relax, just like the rest of his group.

Suddenly a small explosion lit up near them, followed by a scream.

“Don't fall for it, that beast lets some sounds through on purpose.” He warned, having felt the to his right vampire shift in anticipation for a sprint, “Even if you react right with the scream, she will already be gone. Our best chance is to block her strike and retaliate.”

His words stopped the overeager vampire, though he couldn't prevent the group from growing restless.

Shortly after finishing his words, another scream echoed out from near them, this time shortly followed by a vampire crossing into their perception range.

“How? It must have come from here!” The man shouted, clearly confused by coming across some of his allies.

Before any of the five could react to his words, a bolt of fire came flying from the same direction as he, striking the man in the back and swallowing his upper body in the following explosion.

With not even a second delay from this, the group saw another fire erupt on the opposite side of their position. This time there was no shout, instead two blood lances flew their way.

Ducking hastily, all five managed to evade the projectile but only barely. Just as Vernon was about to turn towards its source in anger, he felt a movement from the female vampire who stood to his left.

Taking a step back and turning around her own axis, she decapitated the three other members of their group with one swift motion. For a moment Vernon wasn't sure how, but when her other arm swung at him he could see the glass-like blade in her hand.

Before he could react, the woman managed to cut through his right arm with which he was just about to strike her. In the same motion, she pierced the blade in her other arm into his chest, the weapon missing his heart by only a centimeter.

“Ugh.” Failing to articulate the sentence he wanted to say as she lifted him by the throat, Vernon shivered as he stared into the woman's amused eyes.

“Don't be disappointed, you four wouldn't have been able to stop me anyways.” Jennia said mockingly.

Without waiting for Vernon's answer, she spun around and flung him into the darkness.

For a moment he was confused by this, but when he felt a group of two vampires and one monster dashing in his direction, the realization dawned on him.

But despite this, he couldn't do anything, and a second later, he collided with one member of the group. Before he could even learn which one, the space blade that Jennia had left in his chest exploded.

Watching this from the spot where she had thrown Vernon from, Jennia grinned when she sensed three lives being snuffed out by the ensuing vortex of chaotic space. With thousands, if not millions of tiny shards flying out into all directions, ready to drag a tiny piece of what they hit back into the depths of the spacial layers, it was pure luck whether any of her targets survived.

Satisfied with the outcome, she dismissed the darkness with a grin. Turning around in amusement as three terrified gazes landed on her, she turned to the injured third member of the approaching group.

Just as the other two he was one of the individuals that had previously fought against Isaiah, though he nonetheless jumped back in terror as she teleported in front of him. Piercing another blade formed from solidified space through his heart, she grinned as she felt the terror of the remaining vampires.

“Run as far as you want, this will be your burial ground.” She whispered, disappearing from her position and reappearing near one of the fleeing vampires.

Easily cutting him and the last one down, she turned to look at how Allaire was doing. Quickly finding her, she saw the former facing off against the last two of the enemies she had fought.

Dodging below a scythe of blood, she spun around before abruptly jumping up to dodge a scorpion-like tail aiming for her position. Releasing an arrow aimed towards the monster which had attacked her, it only managed to pierce through parts of the large scorpion's carapaces.

Using a platform of solidified light to dodge out of the way of another swing of the blood scythe, Allaire landed a few meters away and looked at her opponents with visible frustration.

“Give me a second, I had just hoped to end this without going all out.” She said to Jennia.

Her opponents became noticeably irritated by her words, though this quickly changed when Allaire became encased in a five meter tall aura avatar.

Without giving the two a chance, she controlled this avatar to draw back its bow before firing a pillar-like arrow at the scorpion.

Attempting to jump to the side, the monster bumped into a fragile wall of light that slowed it just enough for the arrow to find its mark. This time its protective carapace was easily pierced, with much of the scorpion's body being ripped open by the arrow.

At the same time, the vampire had rushed towards Allaire, hoping to take advantage of her stationary position. Swinging his weapon, his eyes widened as the scythe got stuck after piercing through only a couple centimeters of the aura avatar.

Trying to retreat in a panic, the vampire found himself locked in place by the avatar's hand and faced with Allaire who had drawn her sword. Using the ability to freely maneuver her body inside her own avatar, she shot towards the trapped vampire and impaled him by piercing his heart.

Taking one more look around the battlefield to make sure she left no stragglers, she dismissed her aura avatar again.

“Well, that was anticlimactic. It looked like so much effort before.” Jennia joked.

“Haha.” Allaire said dryly before explaining, “I had hoped to keep this trick as a surprise against the high order.”

Grinning and shrugging, Jennia answered, “As if we need that. But now that you mention that, let's deal with them first.”

Nodding in agreement, the two turned towards Alicia. Seeing that her situation hadn't changed, whether for the better or worse, they quickly rushed over to her.