196 Descent Into Darkness I : Monster Vehicles?

ETHERNALIA LEONIS

TWO DAYS LATER.

The seals around castle Sarang were numerous, and it was totally unlike the style of weavers. Rather than making one powerful profound rune circle, there was mishmash of very hard to break seals, and so easy 'I could sneeze it open seals'. But if there were only a few of them, I could break through them all in a few hours and even grow my skills, using it as a form of very rapid training. But the curve ball is that those seals are numerous, well numerous is more of an understatement, there's a Gazillion seals placed on that castle.

Weavers are rare, and sometimes you would only get as much a fifty or a hundred every generation. Which means every twenty five to thirty years, between 50 to a 100 weavers are born. And since they're only humans, they don't get to live long, so that's why every single weaver for the last Six hundred thousand years, has been mandated to place a restraining or locking seal on the castle, once for every realm they advance, until they die. Their last meeting was seven months ago,which means there's only five more months left until the next batch of weavers come here to add more layers to the seal.

A lot could happen in five months, but unless I'm working day and night, non stop for the whole five months, I'm not sure I would be able to completely break all those seals. Thankfully Ming Bae Ki was not in a hurry to have those seals broken. So as a show of goodwill, I left my clone there. That skill was now at the advance level, making the time the clone has to stay active completely nonexistent, the only down side is that he runs out of energy after an hour, and he needs another hour to fully recharged himself.

I've not used that clone for anything other than breaking seals, making me feel I was wasting the potential of that skill. It seems like a really good combat skill to have, but either way the clone was breaking the seals, one layer at a time. Meanwhile Baeki sent Queen and five other vampires back to the city, though she said it was to 'protect her interests' and let the vampires know I had a Dracula supporting me; I knew it was just so that she could keep an eye on me.

But either way, there was no danger at the moment. With those elders here, it means Asha, Xaseah and our babies were safe, and that the city had an extra layer of protection. Because frankly speaking I don't know how long I would be gone during this expedition, and I'll like to keep my fingers crossed.

But after my meeting with Baeki, blood and resources were not the only reason I was heading into the Black district. I wanted to get stronger, and I was now privy to a secret than not many vampires of the current generation know about. The pit was more than just a prison, it was the ancestral homeland of vampires and their ilk. A powerful spell had burried the entire kingdom thousands upon thousands of miles under the ground, and with the help of a weaver the districts were made.

Whatever that spell was, Baeki believes it was something at either at legendary or a God realm level. She could use a spell like that, but only after a serious amount of preparation. But ruins of the vampires ancient civilization was still scattered all over the black district. The white, red, green and blue district were once border territories of exiled vampire lords and half kings. The true home of vampires begin where the black district starts from, and unfortunately that whole land has turned into a layer of hell. It was overrun by monsters of differing strength, skills and intelligence, years of unchecked growth has made that place one of if not the most dangerous place on Shearath.

And part of my job is to find remnants of the vampire's lost civilization, gather knowledge and Intel, and if possible look for clues to the whereabouts of the Vampires holy capital, the city of Idah. Apparently that city was so magical that it could travel through any terrain, defend and hide itself, and keep itself running for a long ass time. That and all of the secrets, accumulated knowledge and forgotten technologies of the vampire race was in that city. It was weapon, and in the hands of the wrong person it could do a lot of damage. My 'mutual friends' Shamir and Cornelius are the latest in a long like of vampires who want to find this city, and they also have a piece of a map that shows the exact location of the city.

But the other piece is with the bloodline elders, funny enough it was given to Malek for safe keeping. Now it's mine. The two remaining pieces are in the Aviary with the Nephilim, and in the Den with the dragons. There are only two ways in which those maps can be retrieved, and it's either through diplomacy, or an all out war between the races. And I've seen half dragons at work, I don't want to know what a full one can do.

"Are you ready master Kael?" Malek asked as he came up to me.

"yes I am Malek." I replied

"Well that's good, because I have a gift for you."

As soon as he said that, I heard a low rumbling sound, like the movement of an engine. I barely had time to blink before eleven quad bikes showed in front of me in a flash. But what really shocked me was not that Malek had made a mode of transportation, but by how fast they moved. It was a Vampire's speed, at least at the BloodChild and Nosferatu level. I took a closer look at the bikes and noticed that there was gattling gun mounted at the front, and based on the glowing tubes that seemed connected to the gun from the bike, I doubt it shot bullets.

"Transportation has always been a problem for vampires, even in ancient times. No one wants to run everywhere, and not everybody can teleport. But also; most of the vehicles, unless of course it was a space ship could not match the sheer speed of a vampire. Currently I'm working on starting a railway line that goes directly to the exchange border of the blue and green district. Farina believes we can strike a deal with the guards to allow us mine the mineral mountain, and a proper cart, or in this case a high speed train that runs on crystals of condensed soul energy would be able to get the job done. It's the next level of evolution of your soul energy conversion skill, currently you're in the liquid state, and I don't know how long you have before you get to solid.

Anyway what I mean is that, after extensively studying that skill of yours, I've found a proper use for our most abundant resource, and that's soul energy. Building a relay engine, with enough power and flexibility to move at the speed of sound was not easy, but soul energy is quite weird. It's not meant to serve as a fuel, as it's an amalgamation of memories, a personality of sorts. Introducing soul energy to a machine had weird effects as it was totally unstable and ran around on it's own like a child. It was a machine with a soul, but without a mind to control it."

The moment he got to this part I held my forehead as I said to him.

"Please don't tell me you did what I just think you did."

"I had no choice! And I even did one better. Besides what kind of warriors don't have steeds. With a little help from my precious wife....well my seventh wife that is, we were able to come up with a method that everyone with a power crest, can awaken and use a unique kind of vehicle, just like the armor. My wife is a genius in magical theory and application, she's also the most knowledgeable person about the soul arts. But that was not enough, with a little help from Xaseah and her ether smith skills, and also Jeremy from the Artificial Intelligence department. We were able to come up with a container for a soul, that is a mind for the vehicle, and a power core for it. But without a mind, that is a full soul, it would still be unruly. So we paid a visit to the dungeon."

Why did I feel as if this conversation was rapidly becoming weird. I know gave him free reign to work around and help with the city's development, but the dungeon was my special place. What the hell did this crazy scientist do to my monsters.

"We talked to Soren, and I let the tenEnvoys who went with you to see Dracula, explore the dungeon, and choose a partner monster of sorts. The monsters recognize them, and after a little bonding ritual, the bodies and souls of monsters became a part of the bikes. Once activated the forms would change, and they'll have really awesome abilities? They've all chosen a monster, and this more than solves our transportation problem in a scale and manner that we wouldn't have expected. Monster trucks, or bikes, or cars, or air ships. Each with their own consciousness, and bonded to their pilots. With this we don't have to give a shit about Mechs! this is the next level of warfare, both on and off world combat would be changed by this.......Yeah we also got you a monster to bond with, well he's not a monster, and since you guys are already bonded it would have been hard to refuse him."

I looked up at Malek, still surprised and asked.

"What are you talking about?"

He didn't say anything but threw a crystal with gold and dark blue stripes. The moment I touched it, I heard a voice in my head.

[It's been a while Master Kael. I've missed you]

"Soren!"