8

O(I)O(I)

Baragon through most of his life tried to refute what other people have been saying about him...none of it good. He started out as a doltish dwarf with ambitions of being an elite one, but he was both weak and was looked at with fervent animosity all because he wasn't like the other dwarves-the reason he was looked down on by the adventurer's he joined was his foul mouth. Looking at these squamous creatures he felt weak and powerless just like before, but he had something mustering inside him he didn't have before and that was pure temerity.

He leaped off the ground and cleaved his axe/halberd on the right side of the vile beast before him collar bone. His blade had no effect; it didn't even make a sound much less gash the towering squamous-that was what Baragon expected. With pride and temerity fueling his body from his heart to his brain-the feeling of an overlord of adrenaline only those who came face-to-face with a dragon could feel-he clobbered his own weapon with a whetstone he kept just for polishing his blade. He used the stone so fast and barbarously he looked like a caveman trying to start a fire, which also happened in his world, only the bashing was instead pushing the blade deeper into the creature's neck until a wound, a small slit, finally opened in its neck.

"AHAHAHA! I Baragon am better than any elite dwarf! I am a dwarf HERO!"

Baragon's persistence was met with a red cloud of miasma that willowed in his face from the open pores of the beast as it bellowed a roar that could only mean it was hungry and going to eat the dwarf.

He was grabbed by sharp talons with a tremendous scream unleashed in his face. Baragon was clutched tightly, between two more spectating monstrosities and against the beast itself. He could feel his bones start to break just from the thing's hands alone. He would have been doomed to die, have his head bitten off to look like a chicken before his small body was drained of his blood, however, he was saved by an unlikely person: the lady who hired him.

"Cataphract Archangel Death Stroke!"

Before the monsters two entities that looked like heavy-armed soldiers but glimmering of pure light appeared beside Savatia. Without any questions of where they were or what their orders were they unsheathed their swords, also made of heavenly white radical light, and charged simultaneously at a short gap between them towards the monstrosities!

Both soldiers kept their blades at their temples before cleaving their swords in an arc at the creatures' midsections. But just when it seemed their blades would disembowel the monsters, one of them appeared at a speed Savatia couldn't keep up with compared to the plodding movements of her knights. Its haymaker landed squarely in her face with lethal force.

Savatia was hit so hard death would be a cinch; she flew backwards and slammed into one of the urn-esque cocoons. As for her knights, they succeeded in slashing through the torso of the monstrosity, only for the red miasma to taint their holy bodies. They were red and more palpable than before. They staggered back but two creatures pivot from the side and sank their teeth in the neck's. While they couldn't muster a sound, they writhed trying to swing their blades but lost the strength until they disintegrated into dust...that twinkled like a star before it also faded into nothing.

Both Savatia and Baragon were unconscious and neither could get up to face the creatures walking on all fours, smelling them at a level a normal human could do. Cats may have a smell more akin to their level since a cat smells thirty times higher than a human, which could help it smell gas-and they smelled something approaching that reeked of sweat.

With a low commanding sound one of the creature's ordered a rear member to find the source of that smell. It disobeyed him for a short moment not wanting to miss out on the chance to absorb fresh blood but in accordance to how all visitors must be dealt with leaped to the wall and moved up to the ceiling faster than a cat could climb a tree it disappeared to the cave entrance.

The leader turned his head back to the sprawled meat sacs of blood for them to feed on. One of his kin was opening its big mouth to bite on the head of Baragon, but a loud guttural sound from the leader hesitated him from doing so.

The leader decided how they would split the food equally. First, he made all his kind stand in a line-him taking the lead. And then-with his talon pinky finger he jabbed multiple holes in Baragon's non-vital areas-if he was still alive it wanted some blood to keep flowing while it was feeding. Next, he moved up to Savatia to do the same thing-one of its earlier victims, fully conscious, looking at it the same way he looked before having been drained but more worried over the woman's safety than his own.

"P-Please dodon't to-uch her." It stammered.

Another thing the human did was blink his eyes a lot; first a dozen than a hundred times despite how wary and weak he must be. Another thing about cats: they like it when people blink to them and like them the mutated vampire also felt a fuzzy feeling seeing him do it, but his pleas and his actions didn't deter the beast from stabbing, perforating holes into the woman of whom turned out to be his beloved.

He would scream tremendously in terror if he wasn't so tired...even watching his wife tortured and being maimed her into food couldn't keep his eyes from falling asleep...he fell asleep five times, each time he closed his eyes was only for a few seconds before awakening-and in those flitting moments he dreamed he was revitalized to the point he could break free and save her, but after the sixth time...he just couldn't open his eyes again.

Now that the leader had the attention of his kin he roughly stroked with the dull side of his talon the part of skin that was not punctured to the holes adjacent to each other. In its animalistic way it was telling them to only take one bite of their skin than let the one behind them move up to have their own bite. He moved on all fours to the very end of the line after that while the one behind him sauntered up to the unconscious body of Baragon.

The leader wasn't last because he wanted to do an altruistic act. With each bite more miasma would seep from the torn off flesh-he wanted to salivate over a rotting carcass of it and take it all in for himself. Although the creature couldn't speak, it could think:

'I was born as a poor human, abandoned by my own parents, sold by my aunt and uncle from slave trader to slave trader until a horde of these vampires attacked that miserable slave camp. I thought I was going to die...and I didn't care, I never felt sorrow, hate, or joy since I was six...how was dying any different than the way I was living? But the vampires took pity on me and turned me into one of them. When I become the strongest vampire and brood my own children, I'll turn every unloved orphan to be just like me.'

The vampire at the front of the line opened its mouth, its mouth dripping with yellow saliva and ichor, when it was about to rip off a piece of Baragon's arm.

Suddenly, a blurry object ricocheted from wall to wall like a marble hitting other marbles into their direction. Eventually the object came to a screeching stop in the nest. The leader moved closer to the object and to his nonchalant face but there was a bee-sting of thoughts coming to him. It was the vampire he sent to the entrance. He was nothing but an eviscerated mess seeping out miasma.

When the miasma willowed over the next it strengthened the vampires in the line, but some also breezed past them and floated over the bodies of their captives.

To the leaders' horror the mist of red was revitalizing the captives. Their skin returned to their original healthy color, their eyes could actually move again, and their screams were restored. They could scream for help, but after what happened to the last people who helped...they just used their newfound strength to cry out their sorrow hearts.

"Thank you...thank you...But please...please save us."

They could all hear the footsteps; an insipid sound a real adventurer wouldn't so carelessly echo through a cave of lurking vampires and looming threats. To the leader it was either someone who used up all their mana just for one of his kin or a berserker who believed he could handle all of them-not knowing that the one he heard was a little of both.

He stepped before them, all frowsy and gloomy with his bald head and yellow suit, wearing a cape that looked unnecessary in a cave with no wind so no billowing wind for it, and eyes his eyeballs were mostly white. For a moment way too long to be intense he stared at them. And then-

"Excuse me, are any of you holding any male prisoners. I'm a hero who has to-"

Three vampires leaped over their leader and charged at the bald man; two flanking him on the left where they climbed up the wall and the other moving into the shadows to get behind him. As for the third, he outstretched his hands and leaped towards him intending to maul him head-on.

The man thrust his fist which caused his vampire kin to explode like a balloon.

The one from the right side attacked from behind with outstretched hands while suppressing the urge to screech tremendously. A simple backfist was delivered which dispersed its entire head.

From the ceiling, screaming like a banshee because it thought it had momentum, the final vampire fell down with sharp claws. A bit of miasma was absorbed from his brethren losing and it made him bigger and stronger. A frog jump followed by an uppercut and only his arms and legs were left after his head and entire body from his pectoral muscles to his pelvis were nothing but entrails.

"It couldn't be...he is so small and scrawny...but he has boosted his strength more than us. Who is he?"