803 Searing Passion

Far into the forest he could hear something break, followed by lots of movement presumably made by a large creature. Extending his Observation Haki and running after it, he soon catches up just as the comparatively small Garkain was about to escape into some kind of burrow, leading far underground.

With a quick blink, he appears behind the beast and grabs its foot, completely stopping it from going through the hole...

It snorts, squeals and shrieks at him, turning around and attempting to claw at him... Reima just blocks the claws and tears its soul out nonchalantly, storing its corpse to prevent it from being found...

With the beast dead he looks at the hole it'd tried to crawl into, pushing his Observation Haki to follow where it leads, but not managing to reach the end before his Haki reaches its range limit.

Reima sighs, this was probably the place, but he'd rather not waste time looking around for a secret exit that could very well be in the opposite end of the forest... "Time to utilise "that" ability huh?" he mutters to himself as his body shrinks and scales start growing to replace his skin...

Soon enough, the only thing left is a dog-sized winged lizard with black scales and bright turquoise eyes. He glances down the hole but doesn't see much, a bend in the hole preventing him from seeing anything further.

With nothing left to do he crawls inside, folding his wings to prevent them from getting caught and slowly making his way inside, utilising his claws to drag himself through narrow parts of the tunnel.

After a couple minutes of this he starts hearing faint sounds of crying, screaming, and shouting, all obviously from terrified individuals, men and women included. This must be where people had been hearing the sound from, assuming there were more than one of these tunnels, it'd create an echo effect through the entire forest... Was it purposely designed this way?

Regardless of their intentions when creating this, Reima was determined to destroy whatever operations they had down here, as well as capturing or killing Phillipa should she be down here...

Soon enough, Reima finally reaches the end of the tunnel, it stops at the roof of some kind of large hallway, peaking down into it Reima could spot many chained people in ragged clothing being lead by a Vampire... Men, women, and children were all present, no specific race seemed to be prioritized as there were elves, humans, dwarves, and halflings here...

Strangely enough, the people themselves had strange aura's about them... It felt almost, artificial? Reima wasn't really sure what that meant, but he was determined to find out after he'd found Phillipa.

He decides to ignore that for now, and instead swaps his focus to other areas... Somekind of living quarters for the Vampires that held many fineries? No. A machine designed to flay the skin from mortals put inside it...? No... An Alchemy lab?... Maybe?

Ignoring the almost vomit-inducing skin peeler Reima transformed back into his human form and started heading towards the Alchemy lab he'd managed to find, keeping his Observation Haki active to prevent wandering into any groups of Vampires accidentally.

There were a few close calls, forcing Reima to turn himself invisible after spamming spells that'd remove scent, presence, magic, etc... But eventually he reached the Alchemy lab.

There wasn't anyone inside currently, Vampires seemed to avoid this place for some reason... Might be the garlic? There were numerous bundles of dried herbs hanging from racks on the ceiling, and a single cauldron bubbling away in the centre of the room, the ground around it stained with what could only be previous failures.

From the looks of it, whoever operates this place had only left for an hour or two, the cauldron had almost dissolved the herbs that were inside it, meaning that they'd either forgotten about it, or would be back relatively soon.

Reima "Hm, might'as well wait for them to return..." he mutters to himself, sitting on a chair and cloaking himself in the stealth spells again.

...

40 minutes later he could sense a magically powerful presence quickly walking towards the lab, they burst through the doors to the lab and walk towards the cauldron, tossing in some herbs they'd managed to acquire in their haste.

Phillipa stirs the liquid inside the cauldron, waving her hand over it while chanting Elder Speech... After that's done she sighs to herself, "Almost ruined this batch... Damn Vampires don't understand Sage from Savory." she mutters.

Reima silently steps behind her and retrieves a block of Dimertitium from his Folded Space, using his aura to melt it while utilising telekenisis to shape it into a bracelet with an opening...

Without warning he grabs Phillipa's arm and puts the searing bracelet on her wrist, closing the opening to prevent her from being able to take it off. He covers her mouth with his hand as she suddenly starts screaming, the flesh of her arm horrifically burning as it makes contact with the metal.

Reima "I wonder what you're making Phillipa." he whispers in her ear, waving a hand and creating a ward to prevent any sound from escaping the room before letting her go.

Phillipa continues to wail, tears would've been streaming down her face had her eyes not been removed...

Reima taps his foot impatiently as Phillipa continues to scream and wail while trying to take off the bracelet he'd given her, accidentally tearing off the melted flesh as a result...