Khaos Brigade (3)

Chapter 43: Khaos Brigade (3)

Azrail Astaroth Pov:

"Are you ready?"

"Do I even have a choice?"

Lyra gently held the pure white thread created by [Soul Corridor] between her index finger and thumb, being extra careful not to pressure it too much.

If the thread broke, her soul would be the one to bear the backlash from our [Soul Corridor] collapsing.

I smiled at Lyra. "Of course not..."

She was already aware of the details about [Soul Corridor], so she knew there was nothing she could do about it.

I raised my hand, and after a few seconds, a Mutation [Knight] Piece appeared in my hand.

It was one of the two Mutation Pieces I received during the Evil Piece Ceremony, with the other being a Mutation [Bishop] Piece.

'This should be fine…'

Honestly, reincarnating Lyra as a devil was somewhat tricky.

Even though her fighting style was that of a [Knight], her strength solely relied on her Magic Power Reserves, similar to a [Bishop].

A [Bishop] Piece would grant her a better boost in strength than a [Knight] Piece, but in the end, I decided to reincarnate her with the latter.

Lyra would do fine with a [Knight] Piece as she was already strong, and I needed my [Bishop] Piece for a person who'd utilise it properly, like someone with enough magical potential or a Longinus user.

'Great Sage?'

[Answer. Soul Corridor has been inscribed successfully on the Mutation Knight Piece.]

After hearing Great Sage's words, the Mutation Knight Piece in my hand flew towards Lyra, entering her chest.

The Astaroth Clan's Magic Circle appeared under her feet, only to disappeare after a few minutes, along with the thread of [Soul Corridor] that bound Lyra and me together.

[Notice. Successfully established a True Soul Corridor with the individual Lyra Darkvein. All functions of the Soul Corridor are now available.]

Lyra opened her eyes and looked down at her hand. "So this is the Demonic Power Lucifer created. It's quite different from a Vampire's Magic Power…"

As she continued, the Astaroth Clan's symbol appeared on her palm, followed by the clan's Magic Circle.

Since I was the one who reincarnated her, it was only natural for her to have the Astaroth Clan's Magic Circle as her base.

「My body feels fine...」

Lyra's voice rang inside my head, and soon, I watched as a pitch-black spear manifested in her hand.

「Demonic Power works seamlessly with [Darkness Manipulation] and [Aura Enhancement]... What about my intrinsic skills and the Vampire's Magic System?」

After hearing her thoughts, I spoke. "No other Pure-Blooded Vampire has ever reincarnated as a Devil, so take your time and familiarise yourself with these abilities…"

Since Lyra already knew the effects of [Soul Corridor], she also knew I could read her thoughts regardless of where she was.

There was no point in pretending I couldn't.

.

.

.

While Lyra familiarised herself with her new abilities, I crouched down next to the small pool of blood on the ground.

Naturally, it was Lyra's blood.

I took a drop of blood on my middle finger, watching as my skin absorbed it within seconds.

[Notice. Analysed Lyra's DNA and successfully replicated the vampire race's intrinsic skills.]

'It worked…'

I smiled at Great Sage's words.

Thanks to Great Sage's assistance, I could alter my DNA with anatomy control and take intrinsic skills inscribed on someone's body, even if they were from other races.

The only requirement was Great Sage analysing the other person's blood sample, although it might take some time depending on which species they were from.

It only took a few seconds for Lyra's intrinsic skills because I had studied the vampire race's physiology in detail beforehand.

[The newly obtained intrinsic skills are:

Mist Manipulation (Active): Allows the user to generate and manipulate mist.

Blood Consumption (Passive): The user can consume and digest blood efficiently. Depending on whose blood the user drinks, they can gain a permanent increase in power or a significant but temporary boost. It won't work if the user consumes their own blood.

Blood Manipulation (Active): The user can manipulate their blood.

Charm (Passive): Makes the user more attractive to those who feel some attraction towards him, regardless of the type.

Charm (Active): It allows the user to hypnotise and temporarily control the thoughts of their target or even alter their memories with suggestions. The potency depends on the target's strength, mental state, and willpower. It won't work if the target feels no attraction towards the user.

Transform (Active): The user can transform their body or parts of it into a flock of bats.

Blood Raise (Active): By biting their target's neck under the full moon and sharing blood with them, the user can change the target's race to their own, causing the said victim to be under their absolute rule. This method doesn't have an upper limit on how many individuals the user can convert, but it only works on those weaker than the user.

Undead Creation (Active): If a target has a weaker resistance against the user's [Blood Raise], they might turn into an Undead who will continue to devour people and turn those bitten into Undead. The cycle will continue unless the user dies or all of the Undead get slain.]

Those were some… interesting abilities, especially [Blood Raise] and [Charm].

I could reincarnate someone as a devil without even needing the Evil Pieces, and not only that, but the target would also be under my absolute control.

Maybe I could use [Blood Raise] on a devil to have them under my control shouldn't that be impossible, too? That idea sounded worth checking out.

As for [Charm], it also had a decent amount of uses, from information gathering to manipulation, mainly when using [Blood Raise] wasn't an option.

Soon after, my eyes turned towards Lyra, who was on the other side of the room and slowly familiarised herself with her newly obtained Demonic Power.

'Great Sage, show me a status window for Lyra…'

[Answer. Understood, Master.]

+

[Lyra Darkvein]

Race: Reincarnated Devil (Former Pure-Blooded Vampire)

Title: Shadow Fiend (Former)

Innate Abilities: [Darkness Manipulation] [Mist Manipulation] [Body Manipulation] [Charm (Active / Passive)] [Blood Consumption] [Blood Manipulation] [Blood Raise] [Undead Creation] [Transform]

Status: Noble Vampire (Former) Low-Class Devil (Current)

Traits: Assassin

Evil Piece: [Knight] (Mutation Piece)

Abilities: [Shadow Construction] [Shadow Domain] [Shadow Merge] [Shadow Movement / Teleportation] [Daywalker]

Techniques: [Aura Enhancement]

Equipment: -

+

I had almost forgotten, but Lyra was a Daywalker—a pure-blooded vampire who had evolved past their racial weakness against sunlight and could walk freely in the daytime.

Elmenhilde would also become one in a few years if she kept consuming a few drops of my blood every month or so, along with a considerable increase in her strength.

In my current state, my blood was nothing short of a cheat method to level up vampires in a short amount of time.

[Notice. There's a high chance Elmenhilde will awaken her race's intrinsic skills: Blood Manipulation and Charm, with the help of Master's blood.]

'I'm looking forward to Elmenhilde's development…'

Unlike Lyra, who had already mastered her natural abilities to the maximum limits, Elmenhilde was still young, at least by vampire standards, so the boost she'd receive from my blood would be far better than the former.

'Right, I need to test that out, too…'

Lyra swung the pitch-black spear made of darkness while using [Aura Enhancement] on herself, but the moment I willed it, her Demonic Power disappeared.

'Being able to control her strength is nice…'

Yeah.

While researching Hydra's immortality with Elmenhilde inside the [Time Barrier], I improved [Soul Corridor] enough for it to grant me control over the target's strength.

Lyra shot me a sharp glare as the spear in her hand vanished. "What?"

Even though she had accepted her situation, it didn't mean she would willingly lower her head in front of me.

I knew that, as well.

If I pushed her around too much, it wouldn't be beneficial for me.

In the worst-case scenario, she might even kill herself. That was how stubborn her character was.

But did I care about it?

Not really.

"Do I look more attractive now?" I asked with a playful smirk.

「Is he mocking me? Has this bastard finally lost it?」Lyra's eyes narrowed, a mixture of confusion and irritation crossing her beautiful face. "Is this some kind of joke to you?"

My smirk widened at her words, so much so that I pointed my index finger towards her.

"[Dismantle]."

With her strength restrained, there was no way Lyra could defend herself against an attack from me, and her head burst into a mushy paste before her dead body fell to the ground.

Moments later, a magic circle appeared above my palm, transporting two items to me: a pure white ball of energy and a Mutation [Knight] Piece.

An Evil Piece would return to its [King] after their subordinate's death. As for Lyra's soul, it came to me because of [Soul Corridor].

"Great Sage, do it…"

[Answer. Understood.]

A thin line of flesh came out from my left index finger, moving to a distance before its tip started regenerating rapidly.

From the legs, upper body, hands, and head, the thin line of flesh created an entire body within six minutes and detached itself from its creation, returning and merging into my index finger again.

It was Great Sage's version of replicating how my body cloned itself through anatomy control.

However, unlike what one would expect, the newly created body didn't have my appearance but Lyra's.

[Notice. Successfully created a vessel for Lyra's soul.]

Now that we had analysed Lyra's cellular structure, Great Sage could create extra bodies for her soul with my flesh.

The extra bodies didn't possess the same abilities as me, but they had all of Lyra's original intrinsic skills and physical attributes.

It'd be impossible for me to accomplish such feats with anatomy manipulation without Great Sage's help.

'Good job, Great Sage…'

[Answer. It is my purpose to assist you, Master.]

With a smile, I walked over to the newly created body and surged my Demonic Power.

"[Transfer]."

A Magic Circle appeared above Lyra's new body before her soul and [Knight] Piece moved inside her chest.

Under [Transfer]'s effect, it only took a few seconds for Lyra's soul to synchronise with her new body.

"Haah… Haah…"

Lyra's eyes shot open, and she sat on the ground, her breath heavy as she glanced towards her own bloody 'corpse' with a pale face.

「I died… How?」

The resurrection spell was still incomplete, so it left the target in a state of shock and panic for a few minutes, and it was the perfect time to instil a core memory inside their heart.

"How does it feel…" I found it rather challenging to hold back a laugh after watching her reaction. "Death and resurrection, I mean..."

"What… What did you do to me?"

Lyra could barely speak, looking up at my face with trembling eyes, and her fearful expression made me smile.

"You thought if things became unbearable, you could simply kill yourself, right?" I leaned closer, my tone dropping to a whisper as well. The sarcasm in my voice was no longer hidden. "I hate to disappoint you, but I have no intention to let you go…"

I placed my hands on Lyra's shoulders, pushing her down to the ground before sitting on her stomach and leaning forward, bringing my face a few inches above hers.

Her strength wasn't restrained by [Soul Corridor] anymore. She could push me away if she wanted to, but she didn't.

"Whenever you die, your soul will inevitably return to me—like a puppet on a string. In case it is destroyed, I'll recreate it from the remnants I have with the same memories up until the instant you died, placing it into a new body and resurrecting you…"

Death was no longer an option for Lyra.

"If you disobey me, disappoint me, rebel against me, or even think about leaving me, I'll kill and resurrect you repeatedly until those thoughts vanish from your mind. Always remember…"

No matter what she did.

"You can't escape me, as I'd never let that happen, so…"

Maybe it was because she knew that, but she looked like she had been scared out of her wits.

To think that the woman who almost killed me was now beneath me, her beautiful face distorted in dread, her body trembling in fear, scared shitless to the point where she couldn't even birth a coherent thought…

Now I understood why Lyra worked as the Shadow Fiend for centuries.

It was just so fun… having absolute control over someone's life.

I gently caressed Lyra's cheek with my right hand, and her body froze at my touch.

"Let's stay together for all of eternity, okay?"

The last bit of hope she had in her eyes slowly disappeared.

'Ah…'

In her current state, Lyra looked despaired, pathetic, and weak.

The seductive, sadistic, confident, and strong woman who attracted me even amidst a death battle was nowhere to be seen.

Yet, in my eyes, for some reason… She looked incomparably beautiful.

'First Elmenhilde and now Lyra…'

At this rate, mentally breaking and rebuilding vampires might become a fetish.

.

.

.

"You don't know who tasked you to assassinate me?"

"Yes… It was an anonymous request delivered by someone unaffiliated with the client."

"And you don't know who it was?"

Sitting across me on the chair, Lyra shook her head a little. "I usually investigate who the client is after finishing the request, but this time…"

Even without reading her memories or using [Soul Corridor], I could tell if she was lying through [Sound Magic].

"But you can uncover who it was, right? You even figured out that the anonymous request to assassinate Lilia Astaroth was from Seraph Uriel…"

'Lilia's enchanted weapons must've been a pain in the ass for Heaven to hire a Vampire for their job…'

Lyra had made quite some money during the Great War, taking assassination requests from all of the Three Factions under different disguises and even charging them extra for not supporting the other two factions.

[Answer. While everyone was playing checkers, Lyra was playing chess.]

'And Lilia was playing Minecraft on creative mode...'

After Lya's encounter with Lilia, she faked the deaths of all of her disguises and stopped taking requests until the Great War ended out of fear.

Her title as 'Shadow Fiend' wasn't that old, as she only gained it around four hundred years ago.

"I can, but it'll take some time."

"We don't have much time, so find the person who delivered the request, and I'll just read their memories… When you finish that, I have another thing I need you to do after that."

"What is it?"

"Look into the Naberius Clan. It's a vassal of the Nebiros Clan, one of the Six Houses of Lucifer."

「Why'd he be interested in a small branch family like the Naberius Clan?」Although Lyra was curious about that, she held back from stating her thoughts. "Should I look for something specific?"

"I want to know what the Naberius Clan is up to these days… Also, look for a pair of Nekoshou sisters somehow affiliated with them."

Even though I now had an immortal body, I still needed someone to heal my spiritual life force.

Since the two cat girls Manager Kim talked about were from the main cast, they were most likely Nekoshou—a special variant of Nekomata and the strongest among their species.

Nekoshou were on the verge of extinction, so it wouldn't be strange for two of them to be somehow involved in the plot of DxD.

'If they are indeed Nekoshou, it'll be much easier to train them and heal my lifespan over the next few years…'

While having a low spiritual life force didn't have any visible side effects, that didn't mean there were no drawbacks.

First, it left me vulnerable to soul-based attacks.

For example, if a high-level Senjutsu user caused direct damage to my spirit or life force, it'd be game over for me since I didn't even have half a decade's worth of lifespan.

Second, the depleted life force reduced my Demonic Power Recovery Rate by more than half.

The total amount of Demonic Power I had remained the same, but the Recovery Rate was affected by the after-effects of [Life Force Conversion].

Still, it wasn't necessarily a concern. Even in this state, my recovery rate would be in the category of 'talented,' being one of the best in this generation, only falling behind individuals like Rias and Latia.

But as someone who lived with my original recovery rate for over a decade, waiting that much for my demonic power to recover was a pain.

That was why healing my life force was still one of my top priorities.

'I'll turn eleven in three months, and Manager Kim said to search for the House of Naberius when I'm around twelve years old…'

I originally planned to start after a while, but now that I had Lyra, looking into the Naberius Clan in advance wasn't a problem.

Her information-gathering and infiltration skills surpassed mine, after all.

Lyra stared at me for a few seconds before asking, "Who are they?"

"I don't know."

"What are their names?"

"I don't know."

"What about their appearance?"

"I don't know."

"Age?"

"No idea."

"Do they even exist?"

"They should."

"How am I supposed to treat them if I find them?"

"Cat girls should be treated with love. That's the law of the universe."

Yeah. I still had a fetish for cat girls. Fight me.

「Naberius Clan and Nekoshou affiliated with them. The latter must be for healing his life force, but why not ask his family to hire a high-level Senjutsu user?」

Lyra stared at me with a frown, checking whether I was messing with her.

「Talk about a strangely detailed yet vague request…」

I smiled after hearing her thoughts. "That wasn't a request but an order. You either execute it perfectly or bear the consequences."

The vampire's eyes narrowed ever so slightly as if to show her defiance, and I was about to raise my index finger towards her head, but—

"I'll do it…!"

Lyra lowered her head with a pale complexion, her hands clenching around the edges of the chair she sat on, trembling slightly.

I got off the chair I was on and walked towards Lyra, raising my hands forward before pulling her into a soft, gentle hug.

Although she was quite taller than me, our heads were at a similar height with her sitting on a chair.

My left hand rested on her back, and my right hand pulled her closer, letting her head rest on my shoulder.

"There's no need to be scared… As long as you behave, no one will hurt you…"

Lyra's body became motionless at those words.

At this moment, if she wanted to, she could kill me before I even had the chance to utilise [Soul Corridor] because of the massive difference in strength.

She realised it, too.

However, that thought never crossed her mind.

She could no longer point her blade at me, even if I had no control over her life.

"For someone as strong and proud as you, it must be hard to accept servitude in front of a child like me, I understand…" I paused for a few seconds, patiently waiting as Lyra's heartbeat increased rapidly. "Even if you disobey me, I won't hate you. I will make sure to kill and resurrect you until you learn to embrace your current position with all your heart…"

Because of [Soul Corridor], I could feel Lyra's emotions.

Her fear, sadness, anxiety, existential crisis, loneliness, despair, helplessness, self-loathing, and all the negative emotions she felt at this moment.

They all flooded into my consciousness without pause, and I had to admit...

It was a fascinating experience.

"That's why…" After a minute, I released Lyra from the hug and looked into her eyes with a smile. "Don't worry and leave…"

Lyra gave me a barely noticeable nod before her shadow rose from the ground, enveloping her body and disappearing under the effects of [Shadow Teleportation].

"She's an extremely strong-willed person…"

I sat on the chair and watched the room from Lyra's point of view.

"Even though barely, she kept her composure until the very end despite being face to face with her worst trauma. If it were Elmenhilde, she would've broken down in seconds…"

In front of me were over fifty of Lyra's corpses on the ground, each having received a far more gruesome death than the other.

On the other hand, some corpses had no physical injuries at all, but their expressions were incredibly agonising and painful.

The smell in the room was horrendous, with the scent of blood and gore being strong enough to kill someone, but as a former Valorant player, this much was nothing for me.

'The resurrection is stable thanks to [Soul Corridor]…'

Although I created [Soul Corridor] to support my depleted life force, it was only the beginning.

The end goal of that spell was to learn more about 'souls' and allow me to resurrect myself if I died.

To Lyra, the reason I killed and resurrected her repeatedly was to instil a sense of obedience in her and for my enjoyment, but those weren't the only reasons.

The main reason was to collect data on how numerous resurrections affected the soul.

'It'll need a lot of refinement to become an automatic system…'

Creating a method to resurrect myself was important, but there was another problem for me to deal with.

'I need to find a method to increase my Demonic Power artificially…'

Now that I was in a [Soul Corridor] with Lyra, my soul wouldn't age even after I healed my lifespan, which meant that my Demonic Power had stopped increasing naturally.

[Soul Corridor] was necessary to control Lyra and the resurrection ability I had in mind, so removing it wasn't an option.

Great Sage could mimic my physical body's natural growth with anatomy control, but I still needed to do something about my soul.

'It's only a matter of time before people notice that my growth has stopped…'

There were bound to be restrictions if I wanted to cheat death with my current understanding of magic and strength.

For now, I only had one method to somewhat cover for the lack of natural growth, and that was training.

Or at least, that would've been the case without [Blood Consumption].

As long as I found a strong enough candidate to extract blood from periodically, I could mimic or surpass my natural demonic power growth.

Vampires had such fascinating abilities, yet they stayed locked up inside Romania and only drank blood from humans.

What a waste.

If they made the collective effort to capture a strong person or creature once, they could use the target as a blood farm and increase the overall strength of their entire species.

It was a risky move, but without risks, there were little to no benefits.

"Man…" I laughed a little, extending my shadow and letting it devour the corpses in the room. "Lyra has given me so much in such a short time... I'll make sure to take good care of her from now on…"

After that, I spent the next few days exploring Lyra's dungeons and researching the barriers she used to distort space within them.

I planned to recreate the same barriers around my laboratories, so the only method to enter and leave would be [Shadow Teleportation].

It was a fun experience, and I only left this place on Gleipnir's excavation date.

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Words: 3,951

A/N:

I'll upload Azrail's character sheet with his new skills and abilities soon.