Blood Vine IV

"Run?" Thane asked as he shifted back

"Run!" Kayden shouted as they both ran back in the direction they had come from, he could smell the pollens in the air and circulated his essence even more furiously as he ran.

"What the hell is happening, Kayden?" Thane asked as they both ran, there ran side by side as they approached the slowly approached the outskirts of the village.

"Possession" he shouted back.

"She's a Cultivator with a soul core, the monster took possession of her body making it even stronger...." Before Kayden could finish his statement, he saw a child running on the top roof chasing after them, before he could react the child jumped an inhumane distance, something impossible for mundane humans.

The child carried a sickle in his hands and brought it down, aiming it towards the head of Kayden, he saw this and with lightning-fast reflexes, he drew his odachi and made an overhead block at the attacked, the strength behind the attack of the child was unbelievable, he hadn't expected it and lost his balance.

He stumbled and fell, rolling in the snowy till he caught himself, Thane stopped by his side and helped him up, as soon as Kayden looked up, he saw that he and Thane were both surrounded, by women, men, children both boys and girls.

Most of them carried weapons while others had dismembered body parts, Kayden looked around back to where they had come from, the path was blocked by the villagers of what remained of them.

"You should have taken my advice" Thane whispered under his breath, they both breathed in as slowly as they could, the air was still polluted with the pollens of the Blood Vine.

"You should have been more stubborn" Kayden replied back, he knew his foolish decision was what led them to this messed up situation, "What are we going to do?" Kayden asked Thane.

Thane looked at his friend as though he had run mad, "What else is there to do, kill as many as we can and run away" he replied Ike that was the obvious answer.

"K...kill?"

"They're children here, Thane," Kayden said back at his friend, Thane looked at Kayden with wide eyes and then shook his head.

"Sometimes I forget that you have absolutely no battle experience," he said then dragged Kayden by the hair, "Look!" He shouted.

"So they still look human to you?" 

"Don't be a fool and die to nothing, just look at them, if they were indeed alive then wouldn't it be better to put them out of their misery?" He asked Kayden enraged.

"But they're still human" a voice called out from the distance, Kayden and Thane both looked at the body of Lyda as she walked over to them slowly, Thane and Kayden stood their ground, with their backs against each other, and they drew their weapons and watched Lyda as she approached.

"What are you?" Kayden asked in a shaky voice.

"Me?" It said cackling, "I was born from the depths of the underworld, from Chaos itself" It began talking.

"I have lived a thousand years and will live a thousand more, but you already know what I am, you said it yourself" It paused, "A blood Vine they call us, we who were made to feed off the blood of the living, feeding ourselves full" it stopped and looked at the both of them.

"Our greed is unending and so is our gluttony" it pointed at Kayden, "Your body is special, I will have it and become even stronger as I fulfill my purpose".

"Then we'll kill you, we'll kill you all, every last one of you" Thane shouted back in rage as he unsheathed his blade and pointed it towards Lyda.

But she walked towards one of the children, the one that had attacked Kayden with a sickle, she bent down and touched the little boy, slowly caressing his face.

"You would kill your own kind? This young weak child?" She asked.

"They aren't alive anymore, you took their life from them" she gritted his teeth in anger.

"Ooh did I?" It asked, then It kissed the cheeks of the little boy as tears filled up in the boy's eyes, slowly the tears fell down his cheeks as the child dropped his sickle.

"Mama" the children whispered as it began crying out loud, the child held his face with a bloodied hand and cried as much as it could, but Lyda turned back to Thane.

"See? Very much alive," she said, Kayden watched, conflicted and powerful, he couldn't save them, knew he couldn't buy he also couldn't kill them, he saw the emotions of a child that welp before him, he felt them to be true, not faked or pretended.

"But to kill them would be something like this" Lyda sharpened the vines in her hand, the same one that Kayden had sliced off, she shaped it into a stake and ran it through the body of the child.

"Nooo"

"You bastard, stop!" Kayden screamed as he ran towards the child, but Thane jumped on him and pinned him to the ground, "Stop it Kayden, just stop!" He shouted.

"No" Kayden replied, "A child is dying before your very eyes, how can you be so calm, how can you watch this and stay still Thane, how could you?" Kayden asked as his voice grew weaker and weaker, he was confused and hurt, his priorities misplaced.

"Mama" 

The boy coughed out blood from his mouth, the child hung in the air, the vine stake still stuck in its chest, then the vines began drinking up the blood that poured out of the boy, it drank up everything, making the body of the boy to shrink until it was just nearly skin and bones, then Lyda flung the body of the child away.

"Now that, if me killing a human," it said calmly, "But now, I have merely come to take over this village, to lead and direct them as I once did hundreds of years before, before I was defeated by that old geezer" it cursed.

"I'll kill you" Kayden swore, he gritted his teeth so hard he tasted his one blood, "I'll kill you if it's the last thing I do".

Lyda laughed and began walking away, "Before you make such promises, commit yourself to survive," it said with the flick of a hand, and then the villagers who had not moved until now all began walking towards them.