Chapter 247: Chapter 246: “I Dub Thee King Or Whatever!”

As Carl took a random turn into a descending staircase, disappearing before she could stop him, Grenda’s stomach twisted into knots. “I don’t know if we should follow him or not!”

“I vote not! He’s gonna go supernova unless they’ve done some serious tidying up in our absence!” The four nodded in unanimous agreement and the de-facto leader of the group gave her orders.

“Hold them here then! Let those at the box filter in behind and get wiped out. I just heard Narcissus give the order to kill commanders, follow suit and hope for the same outcome.”

They got to work and switch from their bulwark/battering ram tactics to their more preferred assassination tactics.

It was a brutal affair that left jets of blood spurting from slowly crumpling suits of armour and filling the air with haze of blood. A brutal display of skill, precision and merciless slaughter to seize the respect of their kin by force and try to demoralise them into submission.

When it amounted to no more than instants of hesitation they failed to seize, they resorted to the initial plan of hardwiring their instincts by way of making examples of their leadership caste.

Each one lived only long enough to face their enemies, then found themselves disassembled like into a pile of pieces dictated by the gaps in their armour. From feet to knees, from knees to hips, from hips to waist, from waist to neck, from fingers to elbows, from elbows to shoulders.

The ten distinct sections crumpled into crimson-soaked piles of gore, turning the stomachs of their allies and assailants alike. Unfortunately the display earnt their group of four their respect, but that didn’t extend to the charging down the stairs and the arm began prioritising Carl.

All they four vampires could do was unify their relatively meagre auras into a somewhat capable barrier to block the descent and minimise the inevitable casualties as they felt the ground start to heat up.

They then called for everyone of the vampires they had dominated to fallback to the foyer, it was still in the danger zone, but quite frankly they couldn’t bring themselves to completely bail them out.

As the vampires moved, the heat intensified and the black marble began to crack like a sheet of ice covering a river, ready to swallow them and drag them into the abyss below.

Unlike a frozen lake however, what awaited them wasn’t a chilling dip in icy water, one which they would eventually escape from. This offered only oblivion and demise in solar inferno, promising only to consume them in the fires of Carl’s rage.

He hadn’t even noticed how far ahead he had gotten when he turned into the staircase. The well lit castle hallways simply gave way to the claustrophobic confines of the spiralling descent, only lit by overhead trays of silver which supported crumbling pyres that constantly rained down embers onto the foot traffic below.

Carl considered turning back, even stopped and began fighting his way back up, pushing against the tide of lambs being sent to slaughter.

Then a blood smothered scream gargled up from the depths.

Carl’s newly acquired vampiric senses picked it up as clearly as if it came from one of his victims and brought his violent U-turn to an abrupt arrest and he did another one-eighty before descending at full speed.

With every step, the screams multiplied and intensified, then he came to a skidding halt with widening eyes. Widening eyes that quickly narrowed beneath his furrowing brow, the only movement his body made after the sight he was faced with froze every facet of him in an instant.

Before him spanned what could only be described as a cobblestone labyrinth of torture chambers decorated with crimes against creation, laws and existence. Fully-flayed beings wailing in cells caked with so many layers it painted the cobblestones smooth.

Carl was so paralysed he couldn’t even move as he threw up, or as a squad of soldiers rounded a corner ahead and charged upon seeing him, even as soldiers chasing him reached the bottom and he was skewered from every direction, his eyes stayed fixed on the horrors at large.

There was a good chance that they could be healed, but in that moment Carl found himself asking if they should be.

As blood filled his mouth he opened it, and then finally conjured the willpower to look at himself.

“Even if I can heal their bodies, their minds will be too broken to restore…” As Carl spoke he gradually transitioned into a star-form, letting his body heat up from the inside out, melting the spear tips that had pierced him before his body expelled the liquified metal as it healed.

The wooden shafts of their spears and halberds burst into flames that swarmed down to ignite the hands holding them. As the hands reflexively relinquished their grip, the clatter of wood and metal bouncing off of the floor could hardly be heard over the haunting lamentations.

In fact Carl heard nothing above them until the heat started to make the surrounding soldiers scream as their armour began to glow and they were cooked alive by the still increasing heat.

Carl began a slow march through the hellscape around him, until his senses told him he was as close to the centre as he could get, then he joined them in their suffering as much as he could afford to and let his flesh form be burnt away as he fully changed into the one he had stolen from Amaterasu.

In an instant, the ground beneath him and countless cells surrounding him liquified as the prisoners within were released.

The heat washed through as purifying current that erased the horrors of the place from existence, but the destructive torrent of cleansing heat refused to be contained to the level it was born to and ascended just as quickly as it spread outward.

Masonry and marble, steel and iron, silver and gold, everything the eviscerating heat of the wrathful sun touched, became drops to that added to the ever growing sea of liquified material that eventually flood out into the outside world.

Only when Carl sensed it approaching the place where his allies could be felt did he bring it to heel, but not before it had removed enough of the wall and swallowed enough of those gathered to get the attention of everyone else.

Commanding their eyes to absorb the image of the consequences that such actions yielded.

Those closest to the opening fell back as the burning visage of their greatest enemy’s embodiment stared up at them from amidst the golden glow of the bubbling lake. Each would have sworn his eyes were fixed on them, a nemesis born to purify their sins.

Unmoving, as the debris of dozens of compromised towers heat the heat field and liquified on contact, Carl stood as his audience ripped off armour and cast all but the sun blocking lining into the lake.

Carl remained motionless until all that was going to burn had burned, then swapped to his vermillion bird form and flew back to the castle’s entrance.

This time when he entered the hall, he received the solemn reception of a conqueror who had left his enemy completely crushed, void of resistance as fear of rebuke had been branded into their instincts.

They didn’t offer him the reverent kneel of allegiance that Narcissus had earned, rather they offered him total prostration as the weight of the terror he instilled forced their heads to the ground.

As he walked towards the steps once more to reunite with the four vampires, he was not bathed in respectful silence, but serenaded with the chiming of trembling bodies in full armour.

In that moment they understood both why and how.

This was the cost of their sovereign’s folly, this was the insurmountable power that stole his crown and his people’s pride.

This was the human that laid their king low, an example of what happens when prey becomes predator.

Where once Dracula haunted the minds of countless humans, became the reason that countless children checked beneath their beds at night, their children would now do the same in search of Carl.

What made it even more harrowing was how he humbly apologised to the four awaiting him at the stairs and they responded with levity.

“Don’t worry, I’m more concerned that our new boogeyman’s name is “Carl”, it doesn’t exactly strike fear into the heart.”

“Yeah, hopefully the lameness doesn’t necessitate a reminder too soon.”

As the five intruders left them to follow after the others, those on the floor were left with ceaseless echoes of their laughter and the promise of merciless inescapable oblivion if they failed to evolve beyond their present nature.

As they followed in Narcissus’ footsteps, the soldiers that had relented to him turned their backs as though scared their covered faces might offend their new nemesis.

The distant sounds of revived conflict reverberating back to them from ahead as Narcissus, Klaire and Kyubi met renewed resistance as they came into contact with forces still possessing leadership.

Deciding it would be best to let the future king work on his reputation, so Carl thought it best to trail behind at a leisurely pace.

As the others had made it to the end of the hallway they walked now, that was when they had found the rear most forces of the vanguard holding off the second wave in a demonstration of fealty.

The moment they arrived however, those individuals acting as a breakwater collapsed to allow those able to, to actually push through.

When they did, they repeated the pattern. Identify and put an end to the commanders, prove their strength demanded fealty, then demand that fealty be offered.

It was a brutal kind of precision siege warfare that minimised casualties whilst maximising the psychological impact of their leaders’ defeats. This in turn completed their objective of subjugating the vampires.

It was effective, but also time consuming and the unmistakable noise of rampant chaos unfolding behind them as waves of heat surged through behind them were the only reason that time was expendable.

They didn’t need to ponder what had happened, their ever keen senses had heard the conversation those who went with Carl had. Narcissus had guessed the whole story, but all Klaire and Kyubi knew was that Carl was stumbling into something horrible and all hell would surely break loose.

As they continued, they felt the heat waves chasing them die and knew he was finished, wondering for a second if they needed to push on at a faster pace. A moment of wonder that came to an end by the telling slow footsteps of their group being in no hurry to catch up.

With that decided for them, they continued on their way to the throne room, keeping their pace.

The battle became borderline monotonous as the cycle repeated over and over, in the end it was just a perfunctory cherry-picking kind of killing that was akin to surgery. A few lumps of infected tissue being removed via scalpel to prevent rampant festering.

Their battle took them straight to the throne room.

When every soldier between the ornate doors there and the splintered ones at the entrance were loyal, they opened the doors.

The hall stretched a further hundred metres from the door to the throne, which was occupied by none other than the fallen king.

Dracula was dead, a stake in each foot, each hand, each shin, each forearm, each thigh, each shoulder, one in his gut and the last in his heart. It was both brutal and symbolic, their races’ legend had been beaten by a human and in turn died by way of human legend but there was more to it than that.

“He always said “anyone that wants this throne is welcome to it over my dead body”. At least they didn’t let him die as a liar. I suppose.” Narcissus said as he struggled not to feel a pang of familial grief.

“The exiled prince returns the whipped pup of his father’s vanquisher. Lucio was kind enough to tell us what happened as he died in the dungeons.”

“I’m confused, Mortis. My father kept you in your place for what, fifteen hundred years? All that time cowering in his shadow and you think you would fair better against the one who ripped him apart like a steak at dinner?

He’ll be along shortly for my coronation, you’re welcome to try your luck, but I’d rather you not shame our species more than we have so you’ll have to kill me first. Don’t worry about these two, they have had enough of cleaning up after others, so I doubt they’ll interfere.”

“Brazen lies, given what your master did to the castle just moments ago…” As he trailed off, Klaire and Kyubi chuckled to themselves, then turned to leave.

“We’re going to go make sure Carl doesn’t get lost or distracted, if you die we’ll make Grenda queen, this place could use a woman’s touch.” Narcissus chuckled back and agreed, and then the doors closed behind them.

On either side of the central walk, were fifty members of vampiric nobilit spaced two metres apart, all of which knew Narcissus and were known in turn.

“The process we have decided on, is this…”

Mortis took the pleasure of explaining that to claim the throne one would need to defeat all one hundred of those present, all must be defeated to either death or surrender in one attempt, but they could be spread over as many rounds as the challenger wished.

“Why bother dragging this out? Lillim would put me to death if I made her training seem ineffectual.”

“So the Mother Of Demons trained you? Or simply bestowed on you her inflated e-”

“Please shu-” Narcissus’ interruption came too late and as a portal was ripped open and the castle filled with the newly empowered sensation of Lillim’s wounded pride and vanity-born anger, the one called Mortis began apologising.

“The other ninety-nine of you can enjoy your game, I’m going to go feed this one to my grandson’s swarm. Oh, I honestly swear to keep him alive as long as possible. Narcissus, shame in this battle and I’ll bless you with the knowledge of your father’s suffering.”

“Err, yeah, no worries there. Tell Majesty’s children to enjoy their meal, sorry Mortis, tried to stop you… As I was saying, I’ll take you all on.”

Those left nodded and the moment Lillim’s portal closed, the challenge began.

The first to reach Narcissus, shatter their claws against his barrier, then found themself armless before they knew it.

The second looked to the wounded noble, then found himself falling before he even realised that his feet had been severed at the ankle.

Those closest were unable to see what was happening and continued to charge in blindly, thinking it impossible that one of his level was truly capable of moving faster than they could track without leaving some kind of trail, especially while applying enough force to slice through their barriers.

Those who had the benefit of perspective however could see. The reality of the situation was that Narcissus wasn’t moving an inch, but reshaping his barrier into a blade that swung as fast as thought and wasn’t restrained by physical form.

Of course it left gaps in his defences, but at close range it was impossible to exploit.

Suddenly they all became accutely aware of Carl’s approach as well. Dealing with the prince had already proven a far more troublesome task than they had believed it would be, but if his allies grew impatient they stood no chance at all.

When Klaire and Kyubi had returned to him, they decided to catch Carl up on what was happening rather than make him dwell on what had happened.

From what they could tell, he was outgunned in terms of raw power by quite a margin, but knowing how effective his aura manipulation had gotten thanks to Lillim’s boasting about the effectiveness of his training.

The fact they had all felt Lillim’s presence would definitely prove to be helpful to Narcissus, there was no doubt they were left panicked by her arrival and desperate to end him quickly in case the newly empowered Lillim’s training afforded him abilities beyond their preconceived estimations.

Only the strongest would be biding their time to evaluate, but even so, they would be nervous and teetering on the edge of desperation.

“So what should we do?” Klaire finally asked.

“I think we should just start heading there, Narcissus can handle this and I want to get on with everything and move on to the next phase of the game.”

The others didn’t exactly share his confidence, but they could see there was something going on behind his eyes that gleamed with an expression he seemed to share with Kyubi and Kitsunoko.

As they approached the door, they could sense that the strongest of them were holding back and trying to get a feel for Narcissus’ technique.

“Ugh, looks like this might take a while, I hate how long a few seconds feels these days.” As she spoke, she made to sit down, but with a telling look in his eye Carl raised a hand to stop her.

“Don’t bother, we won’t be still for long…” He then tapped his foot three times.

As Carl finished he took a look inside behind the door and saw exactly what he expected. After his earlier display, he had no doubt they were as wary of him as they were the others and as a result, his impatience was contagious.

The moment they heard his foot tapping outside, they got nervous and charged in out of desperation, at which point Narcissus ripped them apart and Carl smirked at the others and opened the door as they shook their heads.

Carl gave a quick clap, then asked if anyone was in good enough condition to crown the new king.

“…No? Fine then…” Carl put a hand on Narcissus’ shoulder and then moved past him towards the throne. “… I suppose it’s only right I finish what I started…”

Carl proceeded to deconstruct the remains of the father as a mercy to the son, then cleared the stakes away as he called Narcissus over and restructured his divinity to a point it could reach the apex of his species, then filled him with enough divinity to force the ascension.

Finally, as Narcissus fell into the chair, Carl grinned. “Take it easy, for now… I dub thee king or whatever!”

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