Chapter 688 True Evil

Chapter 688 True Evil

"WHAT!" The silver dragon cried, clenching a fist. "Why! I should be looking at his brain and spinal matter spilling out, painting the snow red!"

He looked at Arad's open skull, "Why then! Why in the nine hells is this man's head empty!"

Nothing came out of Arad's head. It was empty, without a single trace of a brain.

"This airhead, where is his brain?" The silver dragon swung his fists at Arad's corpse, pummeling it from head to toe, "It matters not,"

CRACK! A thin hand emerged from Arad's back, scaring the silver dragon and making him step back. "What is this?!" He gasped, seeing a child crawl out of the corpse. Chuzuke turned toward the silver dragon, his eyes glowing with a mixed light of purple and red.

****

Vlad's vampiric power wasn't simple. It was, in fact, separated into three different stages, excluding the natural vampire powers like enchanted senses and super regeneration.

The first stage was the king's authority, which made it so that all the dead vampires flowed back into Vlad's bloodstream and increased his blood control to a level unobtainable by other vampires. This was the part that Ginger inherited upon her father's demise.

The second stage was the content of Vlad's blood that Arad ate in his expansion. It two was separated into three parts: Slaves, spawns, and the dead vampires.

Slaves were the live humans that Vlad slowly fed upon, and they were the ones Arad was trying to have Eris free with her holy magic so they could finally fully die and rest in peace. They are now in Arad's stomach. Pulling them out would only result in them suffering further as they already became one with the blood thanks to Vlad's authority.

The spawns were the same as Arad's spawns, humanoids that Vlad sucked their blood directly and turned them into weak vampire slaves. They are counted as a part of Vlad's familiars, and now they are inside Arad's stomach as well.

The dead vampires were the vampires that already died and returned to Vlad's bloodstream. Hundreds of thousands of them had collected through the centuries, and they were the bulk of Vlad's expansion power, an army of the night.

The last stage was an application of Vlad's authority mixed with the content of his blood. As Vlad's natural regeneration was something better than any other vampire, he had to get creative a bit.

Vlad used his blood control to move his soul into his blood and link it to one of the slaves. Once he takes deadly damage, he changes what was damaged from the slave, using them like spare parts for repair. This allowed him to remain alive even when badly injured, but it also contributed to his continuous building of insanity.

That means Vlad was only vulnerable in three situations. When he runs out of slaves to use as spare parts, when he gets separated from them in his expansion, or when hit with holy magic powerful enough to free any slave soul that Vlad tries to use as spare parts upon taking damage. At the fight, Eris's holy magic wasn't of high enough quality to do that, and killing Vlad over and over until he ran out of slaves was a tall order.

Arad managed to beat Vlad by forcing an expansion and using his void to eat all the slaves, spawns, and vampires at once. Vlad could've canceled his expansion and wasted Arad's plan if he noticed, by Arad had already planned for that. He needed someone to distract Vlad.

Nina could do it, but Arad wasn't sure if it was safe to let her fight him and have the possibility of turning her into a vampire or doing something fishy. Eris wasn't strong enough to keep Vlad busy enough that he wouldn't notice Arad's plan. And Arad himself wasn't that keen on sending her to Vlad like that. That only left Kinryuu to be the distraction.

"Are you only realizing it now?" The silver dragon giggled.

"Vampires are humanoid's natural predators, can they be blamed for eating and terrorizing them? Humans do the same to cattle. Is a human's life really worth more than a vampire?"

"It isn't," The dragon smiled, "You've killed an entire kingdom of innocent vampires. What you called a sin was them acting on their natural instinct."

"Holy magic kills vampires,"

"To balance the world, vampires were far too powerful than mere humanoids and the gods needed something to balance the powers of the world. They aren't harmed by holy magic because they are evil," The dragon pointed at Arad.

"Have you ever wondered why the gods never dropped a holy sword to fight the vampires? It's the same reason they won't give elves a holy sword to kill humans, or the sheeps a holy sword to kill humans,"

"Don't listen to him," Zia whispered to Arad, "It doesn't matter now,"

"You're the villain, you're evil in this world, Arad Orion," The dragon growled, lifting his palm and clenching his fist around his wrist.

"The metallic dragons are biased, you're the very evil we should be striving to eliminate,"

"If I was the evil you make me seem, why haven't the gods dropped holy sword to slay me?" Arad stared back at the dragon.

"Think again," A golden sword appeared out of nowhere above the dragon's palm, burning with a powerful divine light. "One already dropped to end you: Vessel of the queen of curses."

Arad's eyes opened wide.

"Two great evils with one sword," The dragon smiled, "We'll come after you again when we have the tools to bypass your semi-immortality,"

SWOSH! The dragon disappeared in a mist of holy light, leaving Arad there alone with the vampires.

"I'm the evil of the world?" Arad looked down at the horrid army of vampires he raised, "Is he right?"

[Don't listen to his nonsense,] Mom growled in Arad's head.

^[That was a legit holy sword, and I guess the time stop is a blessing he had as well. This might be bad,]^ Doma added.

"Does it really matter if he's right or wrong?" Zia whispered to Arad, "Do what you like, our blood lord,"