Book 4: Chapter 53

Book 4: Chapter 53

The vampyr stood slightly elevated from his thralls as they worked to carve the sigils given to him by the Powerful One. The leader of the vampyr had given him a task, and he would see it through if only to gain from it and grow strong enough to overthrow the Powerful One. His thralls continued to carve the sigils properly as he watched, and the vampyr went back to trying to think of a new name. His goal was the pursuit of true power, and his most recent name had been discarded in that pursuit. Each name that vanished from his mind took with it more of his past, more of his failures, and left only strength. He felt that every day, his distant memories of when hed been less than he was now faded away, and he was glad. The old him had wanted things like understanding, friendship, and safety. The old him was a fool. Those were all lies that could only fall before the truth of power. Power was everything, and someday, he would be the most powerful being the world had ever seen. He would overthrow the Powerful one and become become?

He snarled as one of his thralls collapsed, the magic powering it finally running out. There was always a flaw in one of them. The magic he imparted into each body he gathered, a mixture of his old necromancy and the blood magics hed gained when hed been transformed into his new self, usually lasted for multiple days before needing refreshing, but every once in a while one of the thralls randomly collapsed as they ran out of magic. His remaining thralls temporarily stopped carving to drag a few more bodies over, which he raised as replacements, and then the creation of the ritual circles resumed.New n0vel chapters are published on

The building anticipation inside of him, as he waited for the ritual to complete, had him twitching, wanting nothing more than to find someone to show his power to, a witness to reveal how he had become so much more than the weakling hed been before hed been shown true power and evolved into something greater! He wished he could have that foolish woman that simpered at the Powerful Ones feet in attendance to his ascension to even greater heights, but she was somewhere else doing other work at the bidding of the Powerful One and couldnt be here. The vampyr sneered at the thought of her. She gave herself and others foolish titles that somehow sorted them into categories, always referring to him as some kind of arrogant being or something. Her entire system of sorting was moronic, there were only the strong and the weak, and he was strong. She was strong in body and magic but weak in mind because she worshiped the Powerful One instead of seeing what he truly was, a target! A goal to reach and eventually overcome! Soon, he would reach those heights! Getting stronger was all there was, all there ever could be! He was better than her in so many ways; even his creation of the ritual circle was better than hers, for shed spoken of it taking multiple days to complete, and here he was almost done in just a few hours!

The light of the sun glinting through the trees distracted him, and he frowned as he blocked the rays from his eyes with a hand. The suns position was strange; hed already seen it pass through that section of trees there, and last hed looked, it had been sitting on that large rock, but that didnt make any sense. The sun moved across the sky in the other direction, so the only way it could be there was if at least a day had passed, but that wasnt possible; it had only been a few hours. The sun looked quite nice, though. It wasnt exactly the same, but the light dancing through the leaves that swayed gently in the light wind reminded him of home before everything had happened. Before the monsters had come Before?

He snarled again as another of his thralls collapsed, but he didnt have any more bodies to use. It didnt matter, though; the circle was almost complete at that point. He ended up jumping down from his perch and helping to carve the last few sigils himself. When the last one was complete, and the circle was closed, he grinned ferociously. There could be only one goal of an undertaking such as this. Power! The Powerful One was powerful because he strove ever onward for more and more power! The vampyr would steal the secrets of this ritual and grow stronger himself; it was why he followed the whims of the Powerful One to steal his secrets!

As the circles and sigils began to glow with magic, he stared hungrily at them, never taking his eyes off of them so there was no chance of losing even the tiniest piece of a secret on his path to power. However, the more he stared at the glowing ritual, the stranger his thoughts became. Why why was it so important he be strong? Why was he out here, performing some ritual for some other vampyr? He didnt even like the man, who was constantly raving about how magnificent he was. How did anything he said or did equate to growing more powerful? The longer he watched the ritual, the more questions he had. What was going on? Why did he have these undead monstrosities with him? Hed sworn an oath to never create such abominations, to only work with bones and never those of a thinking being. What was happening? How had he gotten here?

What what what was his name?

With a surge of energy and a flare of light, the ritual completed. The slow draw of eldritch energy out of the vampyr that served as the power source jumped in intensity, yanking out the last of the eldritch power from his body in a matter of seconds. The vampyrs body crumbled like burnt paper as the vampire virus, mutated beyond recognition, consumed his flesh. The delicate balance between eldritch energy and corrupted virus tilted too far in one direction, and the damaged body sustained at the razor's edge of the two destructive states of being breathed its last breath.

The ritual circles grew brighter and brighter as the last drops of eldritch power that the vampire had contained brought the ritual to full power. If anyone nearby had been nearby and had possessed the senses necessary to describe what happened, they would have compared it to the sound of a massive wall cracking as something powerful on the other side started pushing its way through.

I wonder, Kay shouted from above as he chased Glowl across the battlefield, How is your Class reacting to this? He waved his hand, and a wall rose from the pool of blood that floated beneath him, blocking the flying gold fist Glowl sent flying his way before crushing it underneath the weight of the wall. Stealing from his enemy, Kay created a giant hand from the pool and set it down at Glowl like he was smacking a bug.

The king of Nelam managed to create a shelter above him that gave him just enough time to roll out of the way before he got squished.

The sound of something massive moving through the air echoed across the field, and Kay once more dragged his attention away from Glowl to focus on the leg. It stretched out, stepping closer to Avalon as it traveled. The hole never moved from its position in the sky, but somehow, the leg took multiple steps closer without ever changing in size. And all of it was sideways as if Kay was staring at a picture that always faced you, but it was a single gargantuan leg that was moving closer. Kay hated the leg with everything in his body, and he couldnt figure out where that feeling was coming from. Another distraction from the rapidly changing situation appeared in the form of a System message.

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New Racial Characteristics Discovered!

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As a new and technically unnatural sapient species to Torotia, any newly discovered information regarding your new race will be added to your Status and to the Status of any other members of your new race as new information is discovered. This information will remain in the Status of all members of your race for ten biological generations or until that information reaches a level of acknowledgeable by the sapient beings of Torotia that the System determines counts as general knowledge.

New Characteristics:

Eldritch Antithesis: The System played an integral part in the existence of your species in this world and the possibility for the first vampire to even exist. Long ago, a vampire Outworlder landed in this realm and brought with them a taint from another realm. The taint came from a reality that stands opposed to the nature of this reality, and as they come into contact, they war to see which reality will overwrite the other. That is what eldritch is, an outside existence that threatens this one. The System has taken its due in assisting the vampire species to exist on Torotia and has made changes. All Torotian vampires can instinctively sense eldritch taint and will be instinctively drawn to seek it out and destroy the source of it. The existence of all Torotian vampires is deeply rooted in this reality, making them the perfect defenders of it. All Torotian vampires are heavily resistant to eldritch corruption and will have any Classes or Skills dedicated to wiping out eldritch taint heavily empowered.

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Okay, Kay said after speed-reading the prompt, I get it, kind of, but fuck you, System. This is some Machiavellian bullshit.

Kenneth Davis. The barrier between realities has been greatly weakened across a massive area. All eldritch incursions must be removed to allow for repairs to the barrier between realities. Other incursions will be handled; you must end the local eldritch incursion. Drive off or destroy the local incursion so the System can repair the barrier between worlds.

Yeah, fuck you big time.