Revenge of the Sorcerer King 2 - 24 (Patreon)

Good Saturday evening!

Chapter 24

Oberon

Thragrami wasn’t the only prize for defeating the boss. A few chest appeared with a variety of gear. Other than an armored robe that I kept for myself, I allowed the others to use most of it. Irgire and Ted got the king’s share of the gear, but it boosted their power to another level.

“The dungeon said it was max level but surely there is no way this is max level for the world?” I asked Thragrami. He was leading us to a teleport matrix at the back of the king’s treasure vault. Which other than the chests, was empty to my chagrin.

“Ah, that. I told it to post that in hopes that it would protect him. I don’t know or remember why, but he was sealed shortly after his birth. I knew the people that found this place wouldn’t be a push over. By posting that, they would at least think twice before charging headlong into the place.”

“Smart. And cost effective.”

Thragrami pushed open a door at the back of the treasure room revealing a large magic circle. I walked around inspecting the magic construct to make sure everything was in order. I nodded after about five minutes pleased with the work. 

“Over here boss,” Thragrami said with a gesture to a pedestal on the side of the room.

“This is?”

“I place me hand on this side, ye hand on that side, and the magic I told ye about will activate.”

After a curiosity glance, I placed my hand on the indicated pedestal. Runes and sigils lit up around us and I saw two forms super impose over Thragrami’s body. The magic was keeping him from collapsing to the ground by locking his hand to the pedestal. He was groaning in pain, but no sound was leaving him.

After close to ten minutes, the magic finally ended. Thragrami slumped forward before he fell to the ground. I ordered one of the few undead that had survived the battle to pick him up then moved over to the teleportation circle. I had one of the undead get on it, before I activated the magic. The magic circle took an ethereal appearance, and moved up. Once it reached the ceiling, the undead was gone.

I checked my status to see if my followers had gone down by one. Once I was sure that it hadn’t changed. I motioned for everyone. There was plenty of room for the whole party since most of the undead were ash now. I felt it was a pity considering they were rather powerful had they survived this far.

Activating the magic, I felt the similar sensation of being in two places at once as the spell did its work. Before long I found myself in the entrance to the dungeon where we’d split up last time. I realized that the receiver magic construct was engraved under the floor but couldn’t detect it since it had no active mana on its own. 

“Fresh air. Feels like its been a while,” Gobluke said sniffing the air.

“Close to two weeks.” We didn’t stay long. I had been in the dungeon for long enough by my estimation. Moving outside, I summoned my mount and hopped up. “Head back to the city. I’ll see you there.” I pulled the reigns and made for the city.

Once I was a bit away from the others, a black shadow appeared on the head of my mount. Helena’s form appeared a second later. With a lite jump, she landed on the back of the horse. “About time you got out of that hole. We were starting to wonder if we’d ever see you again.”

I pulled on the reigns and we came to a stop. “Fancy you should say that. I was wondering if I was actually going to get out. Luckily, it wasn’t max level after all.”

“I didn’t think there was a max level in the first place.” She gave me a look over. “I see you’ve managed to gain a bit of power while you were down there. Even being as high level as I am now, I’m not sure I would risk fighting you anymore.”

“Must have taken a lot for you to admit that so I won’t haggle you about it.” I looked at the star filled sky as I chuckled at the thought of messing with her. I turned back to her the chuckle gone. “Tell me the situation.”

“It was a good thing you asked me to check the surrounding cities and towns. You were right. There were survivors of both the adventurer party that you have locked up and of the town of Guill. The Lordships have deemed it necessary to launch an investigation into what is really happening in the desert.”

I leaned forward crossing my arms on the horse’s head. “Time’s up then.”

“Exactly. I couldn’t get exact numbers since the undead are involved they are strengthening their darkness resistance across the board. Still, I would place in the vicinity of ten to twenty thousand strong. With a considerable detachment from the churches.”

“I see. Well, the least they can do is make it interesting for me.”

Helena crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re telling me you can handle a twenty thousand strong army?”

I flipped my hand like it was nothing. “With a bit of ingenuity.”

Helena shook her head then laughed before she hopped off the horse. “If anyone can do it you can.” 

I gave her a grin before I looked back to the dungeon. “How’s Alessa doing?”

“She is getting powerful. She will definitely outclass me when she is older. Frankly, few on the continent will be able to stop her if she’s allowed to grow a bit more powerful. She also has quite the coven now. They all work together, Jade is making a good sub-commander for her Familia.”

“That’s good to hear. It would please me to see her as a Queen one day. How about her mother?”

“I have one of my Familia on her. Right now it looks like she’s heading for the concentration of your family in the East. She’s making good time and has already reached …….. If she keeps up the pace, she should reach them in just under two months, though I’m not sure how she plans to find them once she gets there.”

“Continue to keep an eye on her. I hate the idea of killing one of my own blood, but am not above it. In the end, family only means so much.”

“You got it.”

“Then I’ll see you back at the castle,” I said pulling the reigns to turn back towards the castle.

“Two things. The Golden throne recently made land fall. Alice has gone missing.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything. There was little I could do at the moment about either of those. In fact, I wanted for them to come to me. It would save me the time to track them down. The Golden Throne would make me unstoppable in this area. It would remind everyone just who they should have sided with back then.

If Lucifer was listening to the happenings in the world, which knowing him I knew he was. I hoped he realized that someone that could actually hunt him down had reappeared. This time, it won’t be the ground I stabbed, but his traitorous heart. With a crack of the reigns, I shot towards my castle.

Alessa

It didn’t take much to antagonize the troll. Just my simple gesture sent him into a rage. He recklessly charged me without any care about his surroundings. Every step the monster took shook the cave and left a decent sized dent in the floor. I didn’t let that worry me and focused. 

I waited until he was right on top of me before I twisted and brought my foot around, the blood armor shifting to form a large spike at the end. With a bone shattering boom, my foot connected with the troll’s shin. I was surprised by how dense it felt, but I powered through using the spike to tear through the monster’s leg. 

It roared as it fell back, but it only lasted a few seconds as the wound healed itself right before my eyes. It stood back up and glared at me. I just got back in my stance and waited for it. My knowledge of the stance coming from my hand-to-hand combat skill. It helped me direct the opponents force around me and to control the flow of battle.

The troll brought its massive sword around in a horizontal sweep. I dropped to the ground and used the palm to force the sword up, forcing the troll off balance. With a grin, I brought my free fist around and slammed it into the brute’s groin. It made a very different kind of roar as I crushed its family jewels.

The troll abandoned any semblance of reason at that point and brought his fist and sword down with only the thought of freeing itself from the pain. I leapt back not wanting to take the full force of that on my head. I might be able to survive it just fine, but it would still be painful as hell. 

Glancing around, I saw that the battle had started with the other trolls. Two vampires each were fighting a troll while goblins and undead assisted them. They were landing plenty of blows and wounding the monsters, but like the leader, they were healing in a blink of an eye.

Unless we dealt with that, this battle would not end in our favor. If I remembered correctly, trolls were weak against fire, but it couldn’t be magical fire. They would just go out when they hit the beast. That means we would need to start an actual fire before we could win this battle.

I thought about my blood armor spike that had torn through the trolls leg, at least physical effects still worked on them. I pulled half a dozen of my blood shards from my person and tossed them in the air. They quickly expanded until they were the size of spears then grew even larger. I aimed them at the still recovering leader.

With a thrust of my hand, the spears flew through the air and impaled the troll and nailed him to the floor with the excess length. It roared in pain as it tried to get free. Taking the moment, I ran over to Jade. Her frozen arrows had a physical state, so they were still affective against the trolls. 

“We need to start a real fire.”

“We didn’t bring anything that will burn easily,” Jade replied. 

She quickly sent an arrow into a troll that was about to crush a goblin knocking it off balance. Directly behind the troll was the tribal tents that made up the boss floor. I pointed at them. “Use for fire magic on those. Then work on getting the trolls into them before they go out.”

I didn’t wait for her confirmation as the leader had just about freed itself. I rushed back over, jumping into the air then aiming both of my feet at his head. With a solid crunch, I connected. The troll’s neck couldn’t take the blow and twisted. The troll’s head was pointing backward, and he was still alive. 

A blaze went up as the tents nearby caught fire. The rest of the party started to work their trolls in that direction. The leader was having none of that and rushed me even with his head still twisted strangely. I dodged to the side, but the leader didn’t stop and kept charging until he was almost on the other side of the room.

“Mother fucker.” I growled before I charged after him. Let’s see if he could still move without any blood in his body. 

I soon reached him just as he fixed his head. The rest of the wounds had also healed by this point. He growled and leveled his sword at me. I bared my fangs, before I rushed him. I dodged to the left as he brought his sword down then formed my own sword from my blood ice. I sliced the arm off at the elbow before I shifted the sword to a spear and stabbed him in the chest nailing him to the wall he was in front of. 

Releasing the sword, I jumped and climbed the beast until I was at his neck. It glared at me as it brought its free hand around to try and knock me off. I formed a quick blood spear and nailed it to the wall. With that, I bit down. The troll lost control of itself almost immediately as it gave into the euphoria pleasure that came with a vampire’s bite. 

I was beginning to worry that I had underestimated the troll’s self-recovery. There just seemed to be a never-ending fountain of blood. I considered stopping but felt that would be defeatist. I kept it up until I suddenly felt a change inside me when I thought I was about to burst. I wasn’t sure if the troll finally ran out of mana to fuel the self-recovery, or I had just finally managed to pull it all out, but I finally felt the monster run dry.

I pulled my mouth off the monster and wiped it clean with a cloth. The blood wasn’t too bad, but the skin had been filthy to say the least. I was thankful that vampires were generally immune to most diseases. I hopped off the corpse and it crumpled to ash as soon as I got off it.

“Are you alright, my lady?” Jade asked. I realized that I was surrounded by my Familia.

“Was a bit more than I expected, but yes. I am alright.”

Sarius shook his head with his hand on his forehead as if he couldn’t believe me. “Where did you put all that blood in that tiny body of yours?”

I looked down and other than my stomach budging a little, there was no indication that I had just drank the blood from a monster that was literally three times my size. I just shrugged. “You got me? Pureblood skill maybe?” I replied with a laugh.

“Maybe.” He just shook his head again. “My lady. The boss floor has been cleared. All that remains is to check the treasure chest.”

“Excellent!” I shouted a bit more childishly than I meant then coughed. “Show me the way.”