Chapter 19. Divinity

VAMPIRISM

Vampirism is a surprisingly common, but poorly understood set of diseases and evolutionary traits, affecting both humans-turned-vampires and "pure" vampires. The defining trait of vampires is the requirement for a vampire to drink blood, and their magical nature.

The first kind of vampirism is simple, Higher Vampires are born as such and cannot transmit their condition to others. They are in full control of their bloodlust, and are the most magically gifted of vampires. They appear entirely human, and often live as members of society as morticians or mercenaries. The agreement is usually something along the lines of the vampires being permitted to drain the blood of the deceased in return for preparing the bodies for burial. Vampire-run funeral homes are called "white charnels" due to the appearance of the prepared bodies.

The second type of vampirism is the transmissible "parasitic vampirism." This strain of vampirism is transmitted by bodily fluid contact; these vampires begin as humans, and become vampires via infection with the Sanguinary Parasite. The ability of these vampires to control their bloodlust is largely based on the individual's willpower. They take up to ten years to fully convert into vampires, as the parasite alters their body almost entirely, from muscle to the skeleton and even the brain of the individual.

Third is baser vampirism. These creatures are born vampires, such as strigoi and ghouls. They cannot transmit their vampirism, and are simply animals with vampiric traits. These are dangerous, highly evolved predators, but fortunately don't enter human settlements very often, nor do they seek out humans specifically.

Venari's "grafted" form of vampirism places her somewhat between humanity and vampirism, having been implanted with the heart of a striga. This provides her with a measure of the striga's enhanced strength and durability, but also the vampiric obligation to drink blood. The volume that she must consume, however, is lower than any true vampire.

Manus pummeled the fleshy mass below him, over and over, giant fists slick with vermillion. Clouds of dust were kicked up, obscuring whatever was left beneath Dolorem. The Voidflame died down, and Manus eyes healed to see a figure rising from the crater.

What had risen wasn't Amatsu-Mikaboshi, but something entirely new, born from a fusion of opposites. Previously porcelain-white scales had been inscribed with black tattoos, and his eyes burned purple with unbridled rage and power. "All those that stand with me, retreat to the hill!" he bellowed. Manus' next crushing blow was met with a wall of force, then blown away. Entirely negated with one hand by this new being.

Once his forces retreated, Dolorem began to levitate. Rising above even Manus' height. Hands outstretched, he unleashed a deadly wave of force, ripping up the ground and blasting the Imperial ranks asunder. Behind him, the Alliance charged forth, emboldened by the turning of the tide of battle. Manus had withstood the blast, and now made a grab for Dolorem. Dolorem repelled it with a radial blast of force, and landed on Manus, his comparatively tiny size toppling his titanic form.

Dolorem looked down at his opponent, it was Amatsu-Mikaboshi's derisive gaze, brought forth by Dolorem. He could sense Manus' true body, suspended within the giant's hollow rib cage. He plunged his hand in deep, ripping his adversary, still festooned in nervous and connective tissue, holding him aloft like a trophy. "Did you never learn not to hit a downed enemy?" He growled. Dolorem fixed his eyes on Manus.

"Go to hell." Manus gurgled.

"An interesting proposition…" Dolorem said. "But you're coming with me."

Dolorem activated his mark, unleashing the full, torturous pain of all he'd experienced on Manus. The gunshots in the forest, the fight with Aeonis, every wound, crushing blow, drop of blood lost, Manus felt it all at once. Dolorem threw him to the ground.

Manus convulsed and writhed in the dirt, while no physical harm had been done, his entire nervous system had been shattered almost irretrievably. Dolorem stood over him, not seeming to hear his agonized screams.

"Get up." He ordered, releasing the illusion. Not for Manus' benefit, but because he felt his heart constricting. His binding oath had taken so long ago was still in effect. He could'nt inflict torture, nor kill with his Mark.

Manus shakily got to his feet, gasping for breath. Dolorem hit him with a savage left hook into the gut. "That's for putting me through what you felt,"

A right hook to the face, "For Lilith,"

A sword-thrust through the heart, "For my Mother,"

A slash across his throat, "For my Father,"

Manus was still standing, nursing the wounds as they closed.

"And what of the families you destroyed? The lives you took, how many? Tens? Hundreds?" He wheezed. "Who'll avenge them? Where's their justice?"

Dolorem looked at his stooped foe. "Justice has nothing to do with it. If you call vengeance justice, you'll only create a cycle of more death, more vengeance. I simply did what I had to to protect my home."

Manus stood up, healed. "And? I'm creating the greatest nation on the face of the earth! What's your home compared to a better life for the scores of people under our rule?" Manus ripped off his gauntlet to reveal a third, glowing mark, still fresh from implantation. The Warden's Mark. He rushed at Dolorem, grabbing him by the throat and holding his hand out, wreathed in glowing sigils.

Dolorem could feel the searing pain as Manus tried to pull the Orochi from him. He repulsed him with a wave of gravity, and staggered back. He could sense The Orochi's fear, something he'd never felt before. "Dolorem." It gasped, if ever a serpent could. "He can exorcise me from your body. Be careful."

"If he does…" Dolorem thought

"That's right, no more regeneration, severe loss of magic reserves."

"What the hell do you mean, greatest nation? You're a warmonger and a tyrant!"

Manus looked at Dolorem with scorn. "Maybe now, but in ten, fifteen years, once everyone is free and living a life free of war, of the twisted bureaucracy of today, then what am I?

Once this generation passes, will their children not compare history to the present and look back with gratitude?"

"You've decided to sacrifice us for your theoretical future subjects? That's the most insane plan I've ever heard!"

"Not theoretical, Five-Seals, inevitable. Besides, all this bloodshed is your doing, not mine. Had you accepted us instead of clinging to your own way of life, your own divisions and borders, we could've all benefited, now, thousands are dead, and more will follow, no doubt. This is your fault, not mine, and not the fault of my Empire."

Dolorem was dumbfounded. Manus was beyond help and reasoning entirely. He was also vastly more powerful than Dolorem, even in his converged state. Someone being thrice-marked was unheard of in recorded history. He had to win, but that feat became less likely with every passing second.

He had seconds, at best.

***

Lilith had returned to the House of Mist. She entered the main hall, wanting nothing more than to see her son and sleep in her own bed.

Venari met her at the door, a wailing Orochimaru in her arms. "He wants his mother," she said sheepishly, making her way over to Lilith. Just as she was about to hand him over, the main hall door opened. They could make out the silhouette of a masked figure.

"Venari, take Orochimaru, and Irilith and get as far away as you can."

"What about you?" She protested. "That's Priscilla…"

Lilith pushed her and Orochimaru away, his tiny, chubby arms flailing and grasping for his mother. She turned to face the intruder.

"And I am Lilith of the Adjudicators." she said, her prosthetic eye glowing an intense amber. She summoned Hinokami. "I will not abandon my home."

"Lilith," Priscilla commanded. "Surrender now and you will be spared, if you resist you will be killed."

"I'm not afraid of you, nor any of your soldiers, Priscilla." Lilith defiantly shouted.

"Then you will die braver than most."

Priscilla outstretched her hand, stone stakes rising from the ground and surrounding her like a phalanx. She fired one off, but it shattered against Hinokami's rippling, translucent surface. It remained unmoved.

She fired off three more, confused. The three of them shattered. Lilith began to advance, one arm outstretched. Priscilla unleashed the full salvo upon Lilith, which temporarily halted her approach. Seeing her ammunition had temporarily run out, Lilith dropped her shield and sprinted toward Priscilla, hoping to score a hit before she could retaliate.

Priscilla got a counter in though, raising a wall of sharpened rocks to halt Lilith. Lilith dived out of the way, rolling to avoid the splintering wood and rock shards peppering the area.

"Why are you doing this?!" Priscilla shrieked. "I offered you mercy, and you spat in my face! Can you not see that we're trying to save you?"

Lilith moved as a blur, seeming to teleport behind Priscilla. "Mercy? Don't make me laugh." She growled, grabbing her and throwing her over her shoulder. She brought Hinokami down, edge-first toward Priscilla, but was blocked by an arch of stone. Priscilla flung a barrage of sharpened rocks at Lilith, which she dodged most of, but some struck home, opening crimson tears in her flesh.

Lilith's eyes blazed with fury. She summoned Hinokami, this time with those same stone shards in the reflection. Priscilla's eyes widened behind her mask as the translucent projections of her own attack were flung back at her. Her shock didn't afford her much time to react, resulting in her being struck by the stones and flung across the room.

Lilith was as startled as her adversary. Hinokami could store and deflect attacks, or at least magical ones. This could be her salvation. She tried to unleash a second salvo of stone shards, but none appeared. It could only use a borrowed technique once.

Priscilla opened the floor underneath Lilith, but Lilith was a fraction of a second faster, using Hinokami as a platform. Expecting this, she flung a boulder at the off-balance Lilith, shattering and blasting dust and gravel on impact. Lilith fell from her platform, tumbling and careering across the room. She landed heavily on her right shoulder, snapping her collarbone like a twig.

Bright spots danced in front of Lilith's vision as the pain of the breakage set in, almost instinctively she stowed her arm in the relative support of her outer coat. With her free hand she blasted off a fire Jutsu, but to her horror the flames did little to slow Priscilla, licking and spitting off a thick plating of basalt she'd accumulated. She moved unhindered within this stone armour, the bulk adding to her height, her augmented frame unearthly in its cruel angularity.

If Lilith didn't think of something, she'd fall victim to the lengthening stony blade in Priscilla's hand. Priscilla raised to strike, but in the final moment, as the deadly implement came down, the roof was shattered, and a rain of wooden splinters cascaded down. Venari had returned. She landed on Priscilla's shoulders, and kicked off, backflipping and landing gracefully as her former employer struggled to regain balance.

"Where are…" Lilith shouted, getting to her feet.

"Your parent's, teleportation mantle, remember?" Venari said, without turning around. "Care to help me put this fine lady in the ground?"

"With pleasure."

***

Dolorem felt a bead of sweat roll down his face. Close combat had become a death sentence, and long range lacked potency. Around him the armies had engaged in a brutal slog, men climbing over fallen comrades and the ground turning to mud as a deluge of rain fell from above. Dolorem saw it all in agonisingly slow motion. Each raindrop crawled down through the air like honey

"What's our next move?" The Orochi asked. Dolorem had no answer. "We can't kill him, that's for sure. How about imprisonment?"

"It's an option," the Orochi said. "But there are a lot of conditions to be met. You'd need to immobilize him, have a suitable prison, restraints of some kind."

"I could generate a gravity well on him, use it to collect debris, rocks and the sort, maybe that would hold him if he was already immobilised. Orochi, can you take us to your domain?" Dolorem began to scheme, within his own, slowed-down world.

"If you used the correct incantation, yes." It replied, "What's your plan to immobilise him?"

"Illusion. A permanent one." Dolorem thought. "I'll make him believe that I'm immortal, a time loop, almost."

"That'll likely kill you, Dolorem." The Orochi said. "You'd be expending a huge amount of energy you don't have."

"And if I don't do this I'll die for certain."

"You promised Lilith."

"I know, but if I don't die she and Orochimaru will. Are you with me?"

"Dolorem, it feels strange to say this to a mortal… but when you're gone I'll miss you. You were the closest thing I've ever had to a friend. The kinship we share is something I never felt."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Thank you, Dolorem, that's what I mean. I'll miss you."

"I'm sorry it had to be this way. Swear you'll guard him from ever escaping."

"You have my word."

Time sped up around Dolorem as he put his plan into action. "Incantation: Valley of the Divine Serpent" he whispered. All around him and Manus, the world seemed to vanish, replaced with the mist-laden cliff faces of The Orochi's domain.

Manus looked around, somewhat dazed by the transition, he had little time to think though, as he found himself staring into the swirling purple and crimson of Dolorem's eyes. He drew a dagger from within his bracer, swinging wildly as Dolorem parried each strike with a shower of sparks from his sword. Eventually though, Manus managed to force him into an arm lock, and stabbed him through the heart. Dolorem disappeared, vanishing as a cloud of silvery mist, reforming again but a second later

The same, brief confrontation played out again. With the same result.

And again.

And again.

Dolorem stood exhausted before a catatonic Manus, who had become trapped in an endless illusion, totally mastered by a false reality. "He's been…I stopped him." Dolorem wheezed and gasped, his heart feeling as if it were wreathed with briars. He lifted a shaking arm and released a little black orb toward Manus. A gravity well, purest black, ringed by a faint corona of white.

Once it touched its target it began to rip up chunks of the earth, uprooting trees, shifting boulders, gathering it all into a skyborne orb. The very ground buckled and shifted beneath Dolorem's feet as he added more debris to the earthen prison roaring with exertion, hands outstretched. He could feel his muscles about to give in, his whole body was breaking down, no doubt about it. All he could hope was he'd live long enough to complete the spell. Once it had grown to what looked like a mile across, he stopped. The immense tangle of rock and clay hung as a silent sentinel over the land, observing all beneath its shadow. Dolorem collapsed to his knees, the Orochi's true form coiling around his vessel. "Orochi…Thank…You…I still have time…I need to get to Lilith," Dolorem croaked.

"Of course," The Orochi said. "I'll return you to the material world. You did well Dolorem. I'm glad I knew you."

"Likewise," Dolorem said, smiling from a bloodstained mouth, tears rolling down his destroyed face.

He began to fade away, transported back to the real world to spend his final moments. "Orochi…be… well." Could be heard, whispered on the wind like a half-forgotten memory.

***

Lilith and Venari faced off against Priscilla, Venari threw Lilith a staff she'd taken from the Adjudicator's armoury, and drew her own borrowed sword. The two women converged on Priscilla, laying down a barrage of strikes that shattered her stone armour, then exploited the newly made vulnerability. Where she flung rocks, Lilith absorbed them with Hinokami, returning them moments later.

Eventually, Priscilla backed down, tripping over herself and scrambling backward, raising her hands in an act of supplication.

"Please, stop!" She pleaded, her mask making her voice sound hollow. "I don't want to fight you anymore, we can organise a truce!" Lilith lowered Hinokami, and approached the kneeling Priscilla. She outstretched a hand. "Very well. We're not animals, so we needn't act like it."

Venari teleported behind Priscilla, just as she tried to draw a stiletto from her belt, hoping to take advantage of Lilith's mercy to land a free hit. Before anyone could react, Priscilla's head was rolling on the floor.

"Too bad you were one, Priscilla." Venari announced, already cleaning off her sword's blade. "Are you ok, Lilith?"

"I'll live. Let's get out of here." She replied, "We need to find Dolorem."

Dolorem had re-entered the real world in the House of Mist's courtyard. With what little strength he had left he pushed open the doors, collapsing onto the ruined floor. Lilith sprinted over to him, gathering him into her arms as she knelt beside him.

"Lilith…I… did it." He gasped. "But…" He was fading in and out of consciousness, breathing laboured. His body was beyond any kind of repair, his chest cavity felt like it was full of broken pottery.

"But what?" Lilith shrieked, fighting back tears.

"I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise…" he wheezed. "I love you, and Orochimaru, more than anything. I don't want to go." Tears were flowing down his face now.

"Go where?" Lilith siad, shaking him.

"It's dark…" Dolorem murmured, clutching at Lilith's arm feebly. "Lilith…are you…there? It's so cold."

"I'm here, Dolorem, please, stay with me!" Lilith was practically screaming, tears flowing down her own face now. Dolorem's whole body went tense, then limp again, jerking and struggling against the encroaching darkness.

Dolorem seemed to have a final moment of perfect clarity, fixing his eyes on Lilith's "My time is up. Lilith, whatever happens, I will always love you, never forget that."

The light faded from Dolorem's eyes, and he breathed his last. His body slackened, free of its anguish at last, even in its broken state.

He found himself alongside Death once more, free of pain, restored to a pristine state.

"It's time."

"Will I see Lilith again?"

"I'm afraid that's not how it works, Dolorem." Death replied, wrapped in an onyx robes and jet black wings. "All of this… it's in your dying head. I'm just an idea. The realm of souls is one of no sensation, only oblivion. It's just the way things are."

Dolorem looked into the sorrowful eyes of Death. "But I had so much to…"

Dolorem never finished his sentence. There was no Dolorem after that. Nothing but a soul returned to the ether of Oblivion, forever.