WVKWnovel 78 (I) Favored
78 (I) Favored
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78 (I)
Favored
“P-please, wait… You— don’t have to… I can bless you with my bloodlin—” That was all the high vampire got to say before Shiv pasted the creature’s head with a descending stomp. A satisfying crunch was followed by a bit of twitching. Shiv harvested the high vampire’s lineage core before the body even stilled.
“Got the last high vampire,” he muttered. His Biomancy field couldn’t sense anything other than corpses and allies in Leu’s building, but he kept his guard high just in case. He wasn’t the one with the Heroic-Tier Awareness. When Adam said they were cleared and Uva backed him up on it, then that’s when Shiv would relax. Until then, his Silhouette stayed active, and his Rememberer remained drawn.
They returned with the Guardshead through the waste chutes to retake her building. But by the time they arrived, things were already well and truly out of hand. Most of the tower had been crawling with the invading vampires, and there was no one left to save. But that just made things simple for Shiv in the sense that he didn’t need to worry about collateral damage anymore.
Silhouette > 73
A thought from Adam passed through the group.
Shiv paused and fully tapped into Adam’s perspective. True to the Young Lord’s words, there was the body of a Vulteg on the ground, but Shiv couldn’t tell that there was a high vampire inside at all.
Adam said.
Shiv asked, genuinely impressed. He focused his Biomancy on the body, and he still couldn’t tell anything was out of the ordinary.
One of Uva’s mana strands speared into the blood without warning. Suddenly, a body exploded out of the corpse as viscera repainted the walls. For a moment, the high vampire struggled and wailed, but a dozen more of Uva’s Psychomancy strands tore into the Bloodspawn. The high vampire let out a wordless scream and splashed down into a gory puddle, her eyes vacant. Uva muttered. Great One
Adam winced at the casual coldness of Uva’s remarks. Shiv just grinned. Hunting vampires was a hell of a lot more fun when you had your friends with you.
Adam declared. He sighed.
Another distant blast shook the building. A second later, Adam provided another update.
Uva added. A snapshot of perspectives followed over from her mind, showing a gate in turmoil. Confriga and his available forces were constantly bombarding the bridge leading to the Abyssal Gateway, but across the city, hidden dangers festered like an infected wound. Lesser vampires were spreading, high vampires sank their teeth into unaware victims from the dark, Aviary agents primed mana bombs at critical and lightly defended locations.
A rush of loathing came from the Umbral.
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Adam added.
Shiv took all that in as he stomped back into Leu’s apartment. The ground was covered in butchered monsters. Bobbing up and down in the pool of blood were also two dead crows, three high vampires with holes where their hearts used to be, and the pulped remains of what used to be a raven.
Standing ankle-deep in the blood was Guardshead Leu, now staring out the large, central window of her home. Part of the room was coated in reinforced titanium after she detonated a mana bomb inside when faking her own attempted assassination just days ago. Now, more bombs were going off outside, and bodies rained down from the districts above, splashing down into the molten rivers as a desperate and sudden battle for Gate Theborn raged.
But despite her near-death experience, Leu seemed thrilled at the turn of events. “Look at it,” she whispered, gazing upon the destruction. “Look at what Confriga’s incompetence has delivered upon us. A hostile army in our very home.”
Shiv came to a stop next to her as he noticed an entire building toppling over from above. Due to the room’s wards, the entire display was utterly silent, which made the sight of the structure tearing through multiple bridges before ultimately crashing into a river of lava below strangely surreal. Adam and Uva were right. While Confriga was busy fighting the First Blood’s apparent army, their true Pathbearers were ripping this place apart from the inside. And part of why they were so successful was because of the instability and terror caused by Shiv and his group on both the outside and inside of the gate.
“I wouldn’t give Confriga all the credit,” Shiv muttered. “Hells. I wouldn’t give him any credit. The only reason the vampires and Aviary are ripping through this place is because of the beating we already gave it from all angles.”
“I suspect you are correct, Master Shiv,” Leu replied. Her eye fell on the third gateway, and she scoffed. “Look.” She pointed at the churning portal leading to Vulketh. “He still has not called for aid. He still refuses to surrender his pride. This is why he is damned. He is so desperate to reclaim his honor and retake what he believes to be his rightful place in Lord Scorn’s Fist that he will damn this entire gate to a slow and torturous death. Why, with a little more time, all the local elites of Compact will lose faith in Confriga. And then the core will be lost to him for good as well.”
“Yeah, that’s useful and all, but I’m not a fan of just waiting around for the vampires and Aviary to take this place. I think my preferred outcome is if they all lose.” And then, Shiv paused as he regarded Leu. An idea occurred to him—something that might just be to their benefit down the line. “And maybe have someone more replace Confriga.”
“Me?” Leu said. She sounded surprised. “I—I do not hold enough sway with the city.”
“You might if you save it,” Shiv said. “If you manage to stop the vampires when Confriga couldn’t. Or if he mysteriously dies in the process of defending the city.”
Adam cut into the conversation.
The Young Lord offered Shiv a bird’s eye view of the gate. The bulk of the fighting was concentrated around the Abyssal Gateway. There, Shiv saw waves of misshapen abominations rushing through. Adam Analyzed a particular monster that had mouths and teeth spreading around its body like some kind of nightmarish rash.
Name: Thing of Enamel Born
Age: 3 Months
Race: Blood Horror
Path:
Horror
Feat [0/0]:
None
Ski—
A concentrated beam of frost promptly blasted out from the gate’s mana core and smashed into the Thing of Enamel Born. It, along with a few hundred other Blood Horrors, froze and shattered into fragments of ice. But as soon as they fell, another tide of horrors surged through the gate, prompting the defenders to unleash their skills and spells in response.
Confriga loomed in the air above, launching screaming specters composed of Necromantic corrosion at the enemies. His petal-like wings also caused the weaker among the invading forces to spontaneously combust. As he fought, he roared commands, demanding that his warriors strike harder and drive the First Blood back.
But while Confriga was focused on the problem at his front door, he failed to notice the blood-drenched bat-humanoids darting across his plazas, carrying pieces of the dead in their mouths.
Adam said.
A gut feeling tugged at Shiv.
Adam hummed.
Shiv frowned. He looked behind him and saw Valor hovering within the slug enclosure, dragging the Graven Cage behind him using a corrosive leash.
Uva’s mind was ice-cold with focused hate. Vampires were her enemies of choice—were practically every Umbral's enemy of choice. Uva paused. A slight trickle of worry escaped her mind.
Adam said.
As Adam and Uva declared their intentions, Shiv relayed the details to Can Hu, and the Penitent gave a high-pitched chime. “Shiv. My drones also have an opening. I will dispatch new orders to have them free the automaton slaves. I will then instruct them to free the organics and begin an uprising.”
Shiv paused. “Right now? The city’s under siege. The guards might slaughter them all if this goes wrong.”
“And once the vampires find them, they will be used as subjects for experimentation or consumed as prey on the spot,” Can Hu retorted. “Or they will be sold again or kept as slaves. Some will always die. But should they struggle now and further inflict instability upon the gate, they might yet live. And more, they might regain their freedom. When this moment passes, should we fail, their fates lie between a slow death under a cruel tyrant or a faster, more brutal end between the jaws of human-skinned monsters.”
“Yeah. I see your point. Adam. Uva. You hear that?”
Uva said.
Adam finished.