Chapter 304

Chapter 304

Chapter 304

In an eyeblink, Aktab’s large dark-metal axe came down with a blinding flash of Unholy light - slicing off the head of an insectoid azag warrior. Within the ocean of blood, the headhunters of the azag hive clusters were truly the superior hunters here and had made quick work of many of the other groups they’d come across - but Aktab’s tribe and the other orc tribes of the Green Hand had been at war with the azag clusters for untold millenia. He knew a thing or two about killing the beasts, and a feral grin spread across his masculine face with his lower fangs protruded when he curled his lips.

Speaking through the red fluid around him, his eyes pierced the ocean and into the very soul of another one of the creatures - brandishing his axe. “Come.”

The azag mantis screeched and used its wings to propel itself through the blood at rocket speed - six legs spiraling and four outstretched mantis blades out wide for a pincer strike. The yellow eyes of the other participant widened in rage at seeing its mate killed, but despite the martial art it propelled itself ahead with - the headhunter was no match for the orc barbarian.

Aktab swatted the mantis’ strike with his pauldron and armored left forearm, batting them away before exposing his dark green skin and the rest of his unarmored body with his knee smashing into the azag’s left wing.

There was a crunch and screech, and the mantis blurred left with a blinkstep - sending out a jet of acid from its mandibles.

Aktab merely laughed and launched himself up through the ocean and into the air - where he could see his other comrades finishing off the rest of the mantis without much problem. He raised his axe on high, summoning a green pillar of lightning from the skies to smash into his axe before flinging the blade at the monster who’d followed him into the air.

There was a resounding CRACK, and the smell of charred flesh met his nostrils as he landed on the nearby island with the gore remnants of the beast splattering around him. He stood smiling and proud, bald head catching much of the gore as it fell, and grinned at his wife who stood with a spear in hand not far off. “Not bad, right?!”

Aktab flexed, expanding his already large muscles and teasingly wiggled his eyebrows at the huntress, who pretended not to be impressed with a snort and an eye roll. But he could see how she looked at him from the corner of his eyes, and Aktab knew that he would be rewarded for his display in front of the others soon enough.

Killing in front of his wife Citri was always a way to turn her on. It made him look fierce, and brought honor to the clan. Even if he was a bit silly whenever he did it.

One of the two other orc warriors laughed and came to slap Aktab on the back. “It was a good kill, even if Citri won’t admit it!”

“Thank you Brother Fram! I can always count on you to call out a good thing when you see it!” Aktab replied, smugly waltzing over to where the other azag bodies were. More importantly, where their blood tokens and spatial bags were - as Citri and the final member of their team were now rummaging through the luggage with abandon.

“Heads, heads, and more heads.” Citri muttered, her head shaking in dismay as she continued to pull out the collected heads of numerous other descenders that’d fallen prey to the mantis pack. “I’ll never understand their obsession with collecting skulls.”

“It is a tradition of theirs, for worthy enemies.” Aktab said, nudging her playfully with his knee and getting a scowl from the kneeling orc huntress below him. “For others, they use their bodies as egg incubators. You know this, you’ve been to their recently conquered worlds on the outer rim of the Pajaji.”

“Yes... truly disgusting creatures.” Citri said with dismay. She got up, and handed one of the spatial sacs to her husband. “Perhaps you’d like to finish going through it? I don’t feel up to the task now that-”

A scream from Brother Fram caught their attention, and the other three orcs quickly whirled around to see him get dragged through some kind of spatial rift in a snap-second of time. One moment he was there, being pulled into the darkness with thick, sticky nets of unholy energy - and the next he was just gone.

It’d happened so fast.

Aktab barely had time to blink before a long red spike covered in black lightning crashed into the other orc warrior still with them - coming from another direction and taking the man through the stomach. The protective wards and defensive life-saving treasures didn’t even last a moment, shattering on impact. Critical energy rippled along his exposed abdomen and ripped an enormous hole through his gut, before spreading up into his chest where his heart burst in a spray of blood. The orc warrior’s eyes went wide in wordless shock, before his body was flung off its feet in a spinning arc. His smoldering remains were sent skipping like a pebble upon a lake, crashing over the island and ending with a splash in the blood ocean nearly a hundred yards away.

“IT’S A TRAP!” Aktab roared, activating all his boosting skills and turning to the spot where the spike of energy had come from - but then he saw the look of horror on his wife’s face as she stared at something behind him. She was reaching out with one hand, a spell taught to her by one of the dark shamans in their village on her lips as she frantically cast to summon the magic to her fingertips; but the look she had told him that Citri would doubtless be too late.

Aktab needed to act.

With all his power, he swiveled and swung - unleashing everything he had directly behind him with a triple-enhanced crushing blow from his axe. The dark steel sang with bloodlust and his body swelled, muscles building, until his strike blindly slammed into something solid.

There was a crash of power, and the cold sensation of something entering his chest. He felt his heart stop in that instant, a tugging sensation that screamed wrongness, and blinked in horror as he beheld a strange, red-eyed man staring back at him. It was a vampire, as pale as day with strange black sclera and simmering unholy tattoos littering his mostly bare body. A vast aura of what Aktab could only describe as supreme, unrelenting hunger blasted from the man’s body, and Aktab was forced to take a knee as his skin started to freeze and his wife screamed his name in horrified denial.

As he hit the floor, he came down to the level of the man’s hands - which cupped Aktab’s still beating heart in his bloody fingers. Aktab felt his body sway from side to side as the sound around him faded; and his vision turned to black.

***

“AKTAB!” The orc woman screamed in horrified dismay as Riven took a bite of the beating heart, savoring the flavor on his tongue as the scent of his fresh kill radiated through his nostrils.

It tasted so, so good... and a thrilling, tingling sensation ran up his spine when his fangs sank into the meat.

Riven’s mind was completely focused on that overwhelming, overpowering sensation, uncaring of anything and everything else, as he let his knees hit the sand while gorging himself on the organ with ravenous abandon.

“YOU MONSTER!” The trembling, green-skinned woman let out a sob - and then without delay she flung some kind of plague-cloud in his direction similar to what Fay often used.

The cloud never hit.

In an instant, Riven was behind the woman. Coating his arms and hands in gauntleted claws of crimson, he smashed her weak body into the ground.

He felt the crunch of bones and heard her pained scream, but above all he felt the pulsing ravenous call of the need to devour. He didn’t even register her as a person, ignoring her sobs as he suppressed her mana and delivered a clean, quick killing strike to her forehead by smashing in her skull. Because although he was uncontrollably hungry, he was not intentionally cruel. He did not prolong her suffering, and with her wails gone and everyone in the vicinity very dead - he settled down to eat.

Hands trembling with delight, smile spread literally from ear to ear, and fangs extended, he felt Gluttony’s overpowering presence consume his thoughts. He began digging through her muscles and organs without another thought or care in the world, gorging himself on the dead huntress and rapidly stripping her bones of flesh as he tore pieces of her off and shoved them into his mouth. Often swallowing whole and not even bothering to chew, he only barely acknowledged Athela’s presence in the background as she watched.

He only barely acknowledged her sadistic smile, only barely registered the ocean of blood around him that began to stream up into the sky like pillars supporting the heavens, and didn’t register the faint words that left her mouth as she tapped a curious finger to her pitch black lips: “My man is finally growing up... That blood farm is going to have to come along sooner, rather than later.”

***

A calm, slowly rotating vortex of blood covered the sky for miles around Riven in all directions - soaking up blood from the ocean as it formed tiny, concentrated threads of power that wrapped themselves together and reached for him far below. The tingling sensation he felt as these threads condensed and needled their way into his black tattoos was a euphoria, adding to the content sensation he had while he continued to devour his victims, and as the bloody threads of extremely condensed blood energy intertwined with the ancient language on his skin.

[As a pureblooded vampire, you have finally come to embrace your predatory heritage and have fed on enough prey to expand your bloodline. For further expansions, you will need to continue feeding on mortals, and will expedite the process by increasing both the amount of blood you drain - as well as by increasing the variety of races you feed on. Please choose one of the following for the trait Bloodline Expansion 1:



Increased Regeneration



Improved Vampiric Perception



Blood Golem Creation



Enhanced Thrall Minions]



The vortex in the sky dissipated, as the last lingering remnants of it were drawn into Riven’s body. The notification disappeared into his status page, and closed, as he began to regain his self awareness.

Riven exited his fugue state in a haze of bliss, blood covering his entire front and meat hanging from his mouth. Two skeletons, stripped of the majority of their flesh, were on the sand nearby, and Athela was still wearing her bikini and watching him with puzzled amazement only a couple feet away. She had one hand supporting her chin, the other tapping her knee, and gave him a loving smile when he finally acknowledged her presence.

“Hey babe!” She said sweetly. “Enjoy your meal? I’d been wondering what would happen when a pureblood like you unlocked their first bloodline expansion! Quite impressive stuff! But you know, Fay isn’t going to be very happy with you if you don’t hurry up. It’s been more than ten minutes.”

Riven stared at the demoness, horror slowly creeping in, as he realized that she’d witnessed his actions. He looked down at his messy chest, and blood covered hands, before spitting out the meat in his mouth off to the side. “Athela... how much did you see?”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

She gave him a knowing grin, scooted over across the island sand, and put a gentle palm against his stained cheek. “All of it.”

“Indeed. Also, I should probably ask - what do you think of Kara? She’s rather nice. Isn’t she?”

“Of course she’s nice. She seemed absolutely crazy at first, but I think she’s just had a rough life from what little I know about her. Why?”

“Do you think she’s pretty?”

Riven scoffed. “Yes, but not as nearly as pretty as you or Fay. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Good answer!” Athela giggled, and pulled his face towards her and plant a kiss on his lips. “Which leads me to another question. I realize you said that you’re jealous when it comes to other men. But would you, theoretically, be jealous of other women? Say, perhaps, if we got permission from you first - would you be angry if Fay and I experimented with other females outside our relationship?”

“Outside of our relationship? That completely depends on the dynamic of that other relationship.” Riven replied. “If that’s what you want, I truly would be a hypocrite to deny you that. Honestly seeing you date other women wouldn’t bother me that much as long as you asked first, and as long as that woman - whoever it was - didn’t try to steal you away from me emotionally. I want to be first priority, just like you and Fay are mine.”

“Nice!” Athela fistpumped.

“What do you mean, ‘nice!?’” Riven asked with a laugh. “Did you have someone in mind, perhaps Kara - since you brought her up? Aren’t Fay and Genua enough for you?”

“Oh they’re more than enough! But as long as you’re alright with it as long as it’s women, we wouldn’t have a problem expanding our horizons!” Athela replied smugly. “I’ve developed a little bit of a crush on Kara. We were going to bring this up together, but since we’re already here talking about it I might as well get it out. We didn’t think that you’d be jealous of other women and it appears we were right, given our relationship dynamic and your earlier reaction when you found out that Fay and I were using Genua. We wouldn’t have pursued it if you weren’t comfortable with it, but now that we know you are... it makes things rather exciting!”

“Is that right?”

“It is! But there’s one small problem.” Athela held up her fingers and pushed her thumb and pointer finger together. “Kara doesn’t want to be a thrall.”

Riven blinked. “So? I don’t want her to be a thrall either. Thralls are mind slaves, and I like Kara.”

“Yes, but how are Fay and I supposed to seduce Kara if she's not a thrall?”

“The old fashioned way?”

“But she’s not into girls.”

Riven snickered at the unamused expression Athela had. “Well that’s tough shit for you then. Find another girl to date. Maybe Kathrine would be into it, if she manages to survive whatever she’s going through right now. I hope she’s alright, anyways.”

“Yeah me too.” Athela stated with a small frown. “But as you’ve said many times now, we can’t help Kathrine and can only hope. Back to the moment though! About Kara - she isn’t into girls, but she is into you.”

Riven raised an eyebrow. “I said she’s pretty, but I’m quite comfortable with the status quo. I don’t want to have another girlfriend, Athela.”

“Oh come on!” Athela pleaded, a sly and seductive smile on her lips as she backed up with a fake pout. “Do Fay and I a solid! Be our wing-man!”

“You’re seriously asking me to wing-man for you two so that you can sleep with Kara?”

“Yes!” Athela nodded aggressively. “Using you to fish for straight women is the equivalent of using catnip for cats, or crack for a crackhead! I mean just look at this handsome jawline! You’re fucking beautiful!”

Riven straight-faced her as she pinched both his cheeks and wiggled them around.

“Weren’t you just saying that you were hypocritical and acknowledged that Fay and I had made big exceptions for you!?” Athela pressed, an eager light filling her eyes. “And you even said you’re not jealous of other women as long as they don’t try to take us away from you, right? Come on, Riven! Be our wingman and help your bisexual girlfriend out a bit! Add her to your harem!”

Riven for his part, pursed his lips - unamused. “I’m not getting another girlfriend, Athela. I can barely juggle you two as it is, and the Kathrine thing is only in name because of the requiem.”

“Ok well what about occasional flings!? It would be fun to spice things up from time to time, wouldn’t it?!”

His eyes narrowed. “Well... perhaps I can see that. How do you know she’s not into girls though? Have you even tried pursuing her yet if you were going to ask me for permission first?”

“More or less dropped a couple hints and felt out the waters.” Athela replied noncommittally. “I didn’t actually do anything though, not without you saying I could. I fell flat on my face with the flirting too, so to speak, but she oggles you every chance she gets with big puppy dog eyes. You’ve had to have seen it.”

Riven couldn’t necessarily disagree, after taking note of things when Allie had pointed them out the first time. “Ok, but how are you going to use me to get to her?”

“Simple! Fay and I already made a bet with her, one that we lost on purpose!”

“The bet you two had when you were whispering at the beer pong table?”

“Mhmmm!”

“You’re such a degenerate. And what did that bet entail?”

Athela cackled and tugged her knees up to her chest, but didn’t deny the accusation. “We told her that we’d get you drunk and rope her into a foursome with us later today if we lost. And of course, we lost intentionally so that we would have the chance to sleep with her too.”

“That’s so fucked.”

“I’m not fucked yet, but I will be if you agree!”

“Seriously Athela, do you have no moral compass?”

“You saying that while rolling your eyes and smirking doesn’t really drive the message home. But no, I do not have any moral qualms about what we’re about to do as long as you’re not jealous or upset about it. She’d be into it if you were there, no harm no foul!”

Riven snorted, and proceeded to get up. “I’m assuming that Fay is waiting for me and you’re going to show up shortly afterwards with Kara then?”

Athela beamed a smile and gave two thumbs up. “You got it! I let them know you’d be late when I saw what you were up to. Just make sure to do a good job for Kara so that she feels satisfied whenever its my turn. Ok?”

“You’re putting a lot of pressure on me here. I’m not sure I can perform.”

“Oh, Riven, Riven, Riven... Of that, I have no doubt in my mind that you’ll do quite fine. More than fine, actually. As I’ve said, you’re quite the catch - and I’m honestly baffled that you’d ever be jealous of any other man given who you are and what you look like. Now - let’s get going so we don’t piss Fay off anymore than we already have! I’m excited!”

“Mhmm. Oh, and Athela?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t tell the others what you saw here. I don’t need them knowing specifics.”

“Of course, Riven. I would never do something like that without your say so.”