78 The Tri-Divine Blood Flame
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Search for this symbol: ***EDIT*** to find new/reworked material. This is a repost.
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"A-another egg chamber…" Delphine whispered, she looked green around the gills.
"But this time…!"
Van looked inside and was immediately chilled. This egg nursery was the largest they had ever seen. Pale blue eggs were lined up neatly up the walls of the immense chamber. Red, pulsing veins ran between them, feeding the eggs with blood extracted from the corpses in the middle of the chamber. There were three recently dead. Van thought he vaguely recognized one. A shame that it wasn't Cyrus.
"This has at least a hundred times more eggs than all the previous chambers!" Delphine whispered. Her face went even greener when she remembered that each egg could potentially become another member of a demonic army.
Crash!
Van's head whipped around. He saw a pale figure staring at them with shaking hands. It was a thin woman with a confused expression on her face. A shattered bowl lay at her feet.
Her expression twisted and she suddenly ran towards them, hissing.
"Attack her!" Van bellowed.
The troop immediately got into formation. Ed, Gef and Phern knelt. They lifted their shields.
Bang bang bang!
Standing over them, Ryan shot his silver bullets.
The thin woman swerved the streaking silver lights. The last one hit her on the leg, but she kept running.
Delphine's expression was full of revulsion, "The bullet broke her leg but she's still standing. What in the Nine Heavens!"
"Ready. Sword Slash!" Van bellowed.
In unison, Ed, Gef and Phern swung their swords. A brilliant blue flash emitted from their blades and combined. The strike swept towards the running figure. The moment they spent preparing to strike again, Delphine used to attack the running woman with thorny vines. They wrapped around one of her legs.
Riiip!
With one hand, the woman bent down and ripped the thick vines in two. She drew back her hands. Long black fingernails sprouted from her fingers. The demonic energy around her increased.
Van narrowed his eyes. This power… she was in the 7th level of Qi Distillation!
"Blackie, now!"
A massive snarling shadow pounced at the woman and slammed her to the ground. Shrieking, the woman struck the large wolf. A wound was created on Blackie's shoulder.
The giant wolf retaliated by sinking his fangs into her arm. The wolf's wound began to slowly heal.
The woman screamed.
BANG!
An invisible force lifted Blackie off her and threw him to the side.
A flickering in the corner of her eye alerted her to an attack. She threw up a pale arm just as Van swung at her with his obsidian axe.
Thunk!
A thin, severed arm fell to the ground.
The woman looked at her arm and some clarity returned to her eyes. She tried to run.
"Depths of the Dark Seas!"
A giant whirlpool of icy dark water surrounded the woman, Van and Blackie. The large wolf circled around her and occasionally nipped at her heels. She was cowed.
"What is your name?" Van said, his axe at her throat.
Her large eyes stared at him. No noise came out of her mouth.
Blackie growled.
Van narrowed his eyes, "Why are you here? Who told you to take care of the eggs?"
The thin woman continued to look searchingly at him. Finally, she put a palm out and gently dropped it a few times.
[Calm down?]
Van wasn't sure if he interpreted it right. Or maybe…
"Drop the walls of the whirlpool?" He tried.
She nodded.
Van scoffed, "You will just run away! Tell me where the mastermind of these demon nurseries are, and I will let you live."
He did not mention the fact that all the humanoid beasts they had interrogated thus far had died the moment they tried to tell him anything.
Looking at her face, Van knew that she knew.
The thin woman looked at him and did not open her mouth. However, she lifted her remaining hand and crooked her pinky finger.
[Follow.]
Van contemplated it for a moment.
"You are not fast enough to run away from us completely, anyway," He said at last. Both him and Blackie could outrun her, judging from the speed she displayed previously.
He dropped Depths of the Dark Seas.
Blackie and Van watched her quietly. She darted her eyes to one side of the chamber and started screaming in a strange sounding language. She ran.
"Chase her!" Van instructed. He leaped for Blackie and clung to the giant wolf's back. The wolf ran past the troop and Van swung them onto the giant wolf.
Van watched the fleeing figure in front. Her running pace was somewhat slower than when she was attacking them.
***EDIT***
[She is leading us somewhere!]
The thin woman pressed something, and one side of the chamber indented, revealing a rough door. She immediately ran through it.
The crew chased after her on Blackie's back.
Half an hour later, they arrived into an extremely large chamber. A strong demonic atmosphere suffused the air. The smell of blood was so strong you could taste it at the back of your throat.
The thin woman suddenly vanished, leaving Van and the rest in the entrance to the chamber.
Miserable shrieks filled the air of the chamber. Their howls and wails traveled all the way to Van's ears despite the distance between them.
"Let go of us!"
"No, not my child! Take me instead, I beg you!"
"Shut up," A voice coldly replied, "Slaves. Take her away!"
There was the sound of footsteps. Another voice spoke up.
"Demon!!! Let me out of here!! "
Van recognized Cyrus' voice. Immediately, he indicated for the rest of the team to tread carefully. They stepped lightly on the ground, carefully holding their gear so they made less noise. The team gathered up behind a large column the width of several men. With soft breaths, they prayed that they would not be found.
"Who's there!?" A cold voice barked.
Van stiffened. They had been discovered.
Cyrus immediately began screaming," Help! Save me! Please, whoever's there. Save me! This demon wants to kill me and feed me to grow his demon army. He is a traitor to humanity, he wants to destroy the Divine River Rea-"
There was a choked gargling noise.
Cyrus did not speak again.
A soft rustling noise, as if robes were dragging on the ground, reverbereated through the icy chamber. It was accompanied by slow, predatory footsteps.
"Come out, come out wherever you are…" The cold voice teased. The sound floated in the air and entered Van's ears as if the speaker were right next to him. The effect was both chilling and eerie.
Van tensed. Hidden behind the pillar, he could not see the enemy.
There was a footstep behind them.
"So some more experimental subjects have decided to deliver themselves to me…Hahahaha!"
The voice was right behind them!
Van felt his heart leap into his throat. He whirled around and shoved his teammates behind him.
A tall emaciated man with a blue eyes and long white hair stood before them. His skin was stretched and pale – as if he had not seen the light of day for years. If he were less gaunt, he might have been considered handsome.
A smile crossed the emaciated man's thin lips as he saw their terror. He licked his lips.
Van did not hesitate, "Blackie, attack!"
The giant wolf leapt forwards.
"Oh? An ancient bloodline lies within this beast. How interesting… but it can't quite compete with…mine…!"
The emaciated man's cold blue eyes suddenly turned a shocking black that covered even the whites of his eyes. Two white horns sprouted from his forehead. A terrifying aura filled the massive chamber. The emaciated man's power suddenly quadrupled.
"Those who try to stop us will die!"
A giant ball of demonic energy hurtled towards them!
Delphine reacted quickly and summoned her Aqua Light Shield. A green-blue shield shimmered into existence above Van's head. It only blocked about 10% of the damage, but the moment was enough for Van to shove them all out of harm's way.
"Good reaction speed, Delphine!" Van praised. However, Van soon realized that the power contained within the black light was too much for him to withstand.
[Not good! The dark energy is too strong. There is no way to block it!]
Van felt his life flash before his eyes. He closed his eyes and sent a prayer to the gods.
[I have failed my teammates. I should never have brought them here... to their deaths!]
At that moment, the green turtle shell within Van's mindscape began to tremble and vibrate.
The dark energy ball hit Van.
The emaciated man smiled coldly.
Guuurrrgleeee
At that moment, the dark energy ball suddenly halved in strength.
Van was completely unharmed.
"What!" The emaciated man was shocked for the first time in a long while, "Impossible!"
The dark power within the emaciated man's move was being steadily eaten by the turtle shell in Van's mindscape!
Van was similarly stunned before he remembered that it had done something similar in the past. It had consumed Silver Mark One's attack back in Mountain Village.
Van acted quickly.
BANG! Red hot flames billowed out of Van's palms and attacked the remaining dark energy emitted by the emaciated man. He committed every fibre of his being to maintaining the flow of spiritual power from his fists.
The black and red lights battled.
The emaciated man did not understand.
[…The power of darkness is being…consumed. The kid's flames are strong enough to devour the dark qi in my move...but that is impossible - he is only in the 6th level of Qi Distillation! How can he be this strong!]
The emaciated man could not know that Van's consciousness contained such a fearsomely greedy turtle shell. He thought that it was Van's flames that were consuming the dark qi. This was because the flame was indeed quite effective at combating dark attribute – the only things that could compete with it would be the lightning and light attributes.
The emaciated man narrowed his eyes.
[I don't believe a low-level brat will be able to withstand my power for long.]
The emaciated man's aura flared out. Dark power settled around the emaciated man like a cloak.
The green turtle shell in Van's mind grew excited. It greedily sucked in the dark qi in the atmosphere. Soon enough, another shield symbol appeared on its lustrous viridian surface.
The emaciated man was both startled, annoyed and furious, [What is going on?]
As Van continued to battle, he felt a strange pull to something in the back of the chamber.
[What's over there…?]
A large dais at the back of the chamber was emitting a bloody and demonic aura. A blood-red crystal about the size of a fist was embedded into the ground. Large, red pulsing veins emerged from the crystal and were embedded into the icy floor. Within the red crystal was a small flickering flame.
As he stared at the veins, Van realised something.
[Those veins look like the same ones that feed the eggs inside the chambers. That means that red crystal powers the blood demonification of the Ice Worm eggs. I must destroy it!]
Van's hair flew up behind him as he continued to duel with the emaciated man. As the power of their moves increased in intensity, Van felt himself grow lightheaded despite the turtle shell continously weakening the emaciated man's moves.
The harder Van forced the flame energy out of himself, the fainter he felt.
[This is the hardest I've ever pushed to channel fire qi…]
[M-my head…ugh…!]
The red crystal on the dias suddenly grew brighter.
The emaciated man felt a pulse of extremely pure flame energy.
[The Tri-Divine Blood Flame is reacting to this kid…!]
The emaciated man panicked.
[If the Tri Divine Blood Flame is removed, my plans will be for naught! I need the power of the Blood Flame to build my demon army!]
The red crystal shook.
"No!" The emaciated man shouted.
Like a comet, the fiery crystal shot straight towards the two battling figures. It was responding to the aura of fire Van was emitting!
The emaciated man immediately canceled his next move. He tried to capture the Tri-Divine Blood Flame.
Van saw the man's panic. Immediately, he knew he had to take the red crystal for himself.
[Scattering Smoke Steps!]
Van's body flickered.
The burning object collided with Van's palm and immediately sank into his flesh.
