Chapter 228: Cloudy With A Chance Of Armageddon(1/2)

Chapter 228: Cloudy With A Chance Of Armageddon(1/2)

Blood holds a special place when it comes to dark magic.

And while many would preach about the versatility, the symbolism, the artistry, the variety, and the history, the real reason blood holds a special place in dark magic is because of only one reason.

Its cheap.

Although cheap might not be the right word for it.

Abundant.

Blood is cheap because of how easy it is to procure.

Most human adults produce a little under 1 liter a day, with some simple magic, that number can easily be bumped up to an unhealthy 4 liters, but that isnt to say 1 liter is something to laugh at.

A liter a day, is 4 cups worth of blood, every day.

Thats 28 cups a week, 112 cups a month, and 1,344 cups a year.

That is, of course, if youre sustainably harvesting the blood.

Blood is vital to the living, in fact, its one of the few things that keeps the living, the living. You take their blood away, and to no ones surprise, they die.

Its an odd way of thinking about it, but the only purpose of the body is to consume enough nutrients and calories to keep the brain alive. Frankly speaking, the brain is the only part thats impossible to replace.Ne/w novel chapters are published at novelhall.com

A person can stay alive without their arms, their legs, or even their heart, as long as the brain gets a steady supply of blood, the details dont matter.

But, again, all of that isnt what makes blood so special.

And dont go thinking those arrogant bloodsuckers have anything to do with it, they didnt invent blood. Just because their diet consists solely of blood, doesnt mean those pale cunts are responsible for blood being as crucial to dark magic as it is.

No. The reason is much simpler.

And obvious if youve ever attempted any kind of dark magic ritual.

See, the thing thats so special about blood is how easy it is to give. A needle prick on the finger, a small blade across the wrist, a large blade across the throat, and voila, blood.

Its easy to give, easy to take, and once again, abundant.

You have blood, your parents have blood, your wife, husband, son, daughter, your pet cat has blood, the neighbors sheep has blood, the butcher shop is overflowing with blood, theyve got so much of it, theyre just throwing it away.

Most people wont even notice some of their blood missing. You might have to get creative with where you stick the syringe, but if you know what youre doing, they wont even know what hit them.

Because, once again, blood is cheap.

Now, flesh, on the other hand, yeah, people notice when you steal their flesh very quickly. A man wakes up with a chunk of belly missing, and he understandably kicks up a fuss.

There isnt even a good place to harvest flesh, the limbs are out, too many nerves and blood vessels, not to mention most people need their muscles, and you really have to know what youre doing to not fuck it up. The head is out, and that leaves only the torso, and even then, people complain when you tear a strip of their skin off.

And bones?

It is a nightmare to take someones bones.

If you think people get pissy about having their thigh meat cut off, just wait until you try getting a rib from them.

And it isnt as if its easier with a corpse.

Sylver used [Fog Form] to travel through the holes he had made and materialized inside his workshop.

The various tables and chairs had been moved over to the corners and sides of the room, to give the thing in the middle as much space as possible.

It looked like an icicle of dark green congealed blood. With black pulsing veins running up and down the gory, admittedly slightly phallic, pillar.

The magical gore had formed a protective film around the building and was actively moving the congealing blood off the roof and throwing it down towards the ground.

Because of the blood being blood, it had started to congeal after a few minutes, which in turn meant that it had formed small stalagmites on the roof. The structure of the building was fairly solid, the wood they used for construction was as hard as stone, and presumably as strong, but theres still a limit as to how much the wooden walls would be able to hold.

The congealing blood formed a sort of rim on the edges of the roof, and that then became a bowl on the roof, which was gradually gathering blood, and getting heavier and heavier.

Sylver had been too preoccupied with preventing his own house from being crushed under the weight of scabs to pay too much attention to the nearby sects, but he was fairly certain he heard the sound of a tall building toppling over at some point.

The fact that the architectural standard here was to use the roof as an extra floor really bit these people in the ass. Especially the ones that had gardens on their roofs, the soil alone likely soaked up enough blood to come crashing through the ceiling.

Sylver checked the bloody pillar, and after he confirmed that everything was in order, sat down in the corner, and waited for Spring to brew him some tea.

Can they fix this? Ria asked, as she came out of Sylvers robe, and sat down on the nearby table.

There was a slight delay before she started to speak. What Ria really wanted to ask was its raining blood outside, and youre drinking tea? but she stopped herself since she already knew the answer, given that that was exactly what Sylver was doing.

I mean, if it stops raining, the blood will dry up, and should be quite easy to gather and dispose of. The plants will probably die from iron toxicity, or simply drown, depending on how long this goes on. Honestly, the thing everyone should be more worried about is the giant serpents head, that is responsible for the rain of blood, Sylver said, and got to watch as Rias face lost any trace of emotion.

She had been slightly annoyed, and upset, earlier, but now she was just confused.

Thats right Everyone saw it Ria mumbled out.

I mean, if anyone is insane and stupid enough to live on top of a living dragon, my money is on cultivators But theyre probably going to evacuate, Sylver said, as Spring handed him the cup of steaming hot tea.

Where will they go? Ria asked.

My guess is south. They wouldnt survive the winters up north, I believe theres an ocean west of here, and everything on the east is the High Kings territory, Sylver said.

Ria made that ticking noise again.

It sort of sounded like someone was tapping the tip of their knife against a glass window, but just barely audible.

He knew what she wanted to say.

Arent you going to help these people? How can you just leave them to die? and so on, and so forth, all while Sylver blankly answered that they werent his problem or responsibility and that he only came here to find Edmund.

This wasnt to say he didnt feel sorry for them.

And Ria could make the argument that he went out of his way to save the dark elves, so why isnt he doing the same for these people?

Well, for starters, the locals here looked foreign to Sylver and didnt remind him of Nyx every single time he saw their faces. That alone helped him not care too much.

The second reason was scale. A couple hundred dark elves was one thing, but hundreds of thousands of people? Sylver couldnt even find a good spot to settle the dark elves, what the fuck was he going to do with a literal nation full of people?

The third reason, and the most important as far as Sylver was concerned, was that he didnt owe these people anything. They had an emperor; it was his responsibility to handle this kind of bullshit.

Obviously, the cultivators Faust had trained were coming with him, but everyone else would just have to figure things out for themselves.

Sylver was in the middle of sipping his tea when the floor shook so hard that he nearly choked on it.