Chapter 179: Apophis [II]

Blood rained down around Tej. She simply couldn’t understand. How did it not only use her technique but make it stronger?

‘Twelve-eyed wheel… Devouring Samsara… Divine General… Apophis?’

Tej recounted the words that the woman had spoken while summoning this Shinigami. What were those supposed to mean? If there was such a powerful Shinigami as this one, why hadn’t she heard of something like it in the old era?

The beams of blood came for her but they simply redirected.

Why would blood dream of touching a Princess such as herself? But as she fell from the air alongside Apophis, she couldn’t help but wonder… What else was this monster capable of?

What was it doing? Was it adapting? No, it couldn’t merely be adapting because it had learned her technique. Could it be evolving? Each passing moment it fought her… was it evolving?

Apophis shot in her direction again and this time her eyes opened, making the air around her tremble as space vibrated and pushed the Shinigami backward through more wreckage. Apophis crashed into the ground, spreading a crater.

‘M-mate…’

She turned to the side. He was alright. The attacks had struck anywhere but their general direction. She could also sense the Shinigami Arts user near to him. She held Apophis down with space while pointing a finger in that direction and gathering blood.

‘Kill… I need to kill her…’

As long as she died then this monstrosity would stop and—

Bloom finally spoke her first words since awakening in this world.

“Weak… What kind of future queen are you?”

Her body locked up as her father’s Familiar spoke to her.

“Why are you so weak? The Shinigami is right in front of you so why are you aiming for the user?”

Apophis’s wheel began spinning rapidly as the white eye released blood as well, breaking free from the hold of her space control.

‘Isn’t that the right thing to do though?’

The Familiar attached to her back trembled.

“No… A vampire fights head-on. What happened to your pride? When my former master attached me to the back of his first daughter, this isn’t what I was expecting at all.”

Tej lowered her hand and stopped charging blood to aim for Disguise Master as Apophis broke free of the space control with a shattering sound.

“Alright then…” Tej said with a sigh.

Apophis shot for her again and she shot toward the Shinigami. A blade manifested from the Familiar… formed of blood that had existed centuries before she was born.

Her father’s very first blade… the Blade of Death. A blade made of blood so old that it had spilled the blood of the second monster in the Apocalypse at the very beginning.

They clashed.

BOOOOOOM!

The impact razed the surrounding area, leaving a massive crater spreading across the ground even though the attack had happened in the sky.

As Tej pushed against the resistance, she took note of the weapon that Apophis’s right hand had turned into.

It had transformed into a pure white blade with a single ancient rune carved on it… one that she recognized very well.

“H-huh?!”

Both Tej and Bloom thought as they were pushed back by the resulting shockwave, crashing into the ground. Tej stabbed the tip of the blade into the earth as she looked up at Apophis with fear in her eyes.

Why does it wield that blade…?

WHY IN THE HELL DID THIS SHINIGAMI HAVE SOULBREAKER?!

Of course she knew what it was. Bloom did too. In fact, everybody in the old era knew what Soulbreaker was, knew its terrible legend, and knew its horrifying purpose.

It was a special weapon that the Dwarf God had created using every last bit of his divinity and the sacrificed lives of his entire race… which was why dwarves no longer existed anywhere in any world. Soulbreaker was known to be able to destroy the souls of living things permanently, including immortals like her.

Nobody was safe from it at all.

‘If I wasn’t using the Death Blade then I would have died in that crossing of blades…’

She took another stance, dashing to the right.

She was not going to fight this monstrosity head-on anymore. Who cared about pride? She was going to kill that Shinigami Arts user before she died and failed to fulfill her mission!

However, Apophis simply was not going to give her the time. It disappeared, tearing through the air with a sonic boom. She raised her sword defensively and was sent flying backward.

‘The more I let this Shinigami stay in the field, the more I’ll regret it…’

It just seemed to grow even faster.

“Bloom, kill that woman…” the Princess ordered.

The Familiar complied immediately. Blood flowed out of the Princess’s back, shooting a beam up into the sky that was about to split—

Apophis fired a beam of its own blood upward, colliding with Bloom’s attack and rendering it useless.

“Huh?!”

The Familiar exclaimed and shot out multiple hundreds into the air. However, Apophis countered with multiple hundreds of its own blood shots that had numbing properties. The blood barrage that was supposed to happen did not happen.

Tej fired one of her own.

The numbing shot went forward but she detonated it early, splitting it into hundreds of shots immediately.

Apophis’s own blood split into several beams shooting forward to contain hers. Out of a hundred, one singular beam shot toward Disguise Master’s head—

A numbing shot canceled it out immediately, the near-miss making Disguise Master’s hair blow in the wind.

She looked down at her master. Koya’s two halves were connected and his organs were rejoining themselves.

It was a miracle… She ran her hand through his hair with a smile on her face as blood trickled down from her nose.

“Don’t worry Master, I’ll make sure to exterminate that troublesome vampire once and for all…”

Disguise Master thought as she wiped the blood from her nose. To summon Apophis, she felt like she was drawing from something that couldn’t be refilled, but that didn’t matter. She wanted to murder… She wanted to kill that obnoxious vampire so badly her body was shaking…

“And my name… Master, please call me by my name. Kaede… I’ll tell you again when you wake up.”

Apophis dove down, cutting through the air toward Tej as her eyes widened in alarm.

“Stay away!”

She tapped into her third element and followed up with a blast of light that eviscerated Apophis completely.

However, yet another eye opened at the top of the wheel… this one glowing with gold. Apophis reformed and dove down once again with Soulbreaker glowing golden, which meant it had activated its soul-breaking property.

“Die! Die! Die! Die!”

She shot light again and again, tearing through the air and impacting Apophis with each strike. The wheel spun until it stopped as the eye rolled. She struck with space and the white eye rolled as well.

Apophis closed the distance and slashed, cleaving through the woman completely.

However, the next instant she turned into blood and appeared behind Apophis, gritting her teeth.

Apophis raised the blade to counter and immediately she hit it, letting loose as much light as she could manage and sending the Shinigami flying and though it wasn’t affected, Soulbreaker had a few cracks in it, which made her smile…

Then the blade healed, making her eyes furrow as Apophis shot toward her again.

‘I believe it’s time…’

She closed her eyes as Apophis neared and raised Soulbreaker toward her face. Just as Apophis closed the distance, She opened her eyes and a burst of blood emerged from her completely, expanding all around and trapping both her and Apophis in a realm of blood.

“Domain Manifest…” Tej spoke as the realm of blood bubbled around her, glowing with power. “Infinite Blood Palace.”

After three hundred years of dedicated training, countless battles and endless refinement… this was the Domain she had perfected.𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

As long as she was inside her domain, the vampire had infinite blood to spare. Infinite reserves to draw from. Infinite blood to kill her enemies with and with a Blood Generator like Bloom attached to her back, constantly producing more? It was simply much more than infinite. It was overwhelming and absolute.

Apophis tried to take a step forward but the ground beneath it caved in completely, liquid blood swallowing its lower half like quicksand trying to drag it down into an abyss. She brought her palm forward with her fingers spread.

“Infinite Barrage.”

A single ripple went through her domain of blood, spreading outward in perfect concentric circles as the chaos erupted.

Blood from all sides attacked the monster simultaneously… blood pods that exploded on contact with tremendous force, blood bullets that pierced through its body like machine gun fire, weapons forged entirely of blood raining down. Swords, spears, axes, chains, all converging on the Shinigami’s body from every conceivable angle.

Different kinds of blood with different properties: freezing blood that crystallized on contact, burning blood that seared, numbing blood that paralyzed, cutting blood that sliced. The variety was endless and the assault was relentless, destroying Apophis as fast as it could rebuild itself.

The wheel kept spinning constantly, like a disc hovering above its head, tracking every attack type and analyzing every technique. Apophis reformed through the onslaught and solidified the blood beneath it so it wouldn’t swallow.

It was forced to one knee, being attacked infinitely from all directions.

‘Again… This again…’

No matter how much damage she dealt, it just kept coming back. Tej increased the intensity dramatically with Bloom’s help, the Familiar generating even more blood to fuel the assault. The Infinite Barrage converged with doubled, tripled force—

But Apophis rose from its knees anyway.

“Why don’t you just die already?!”

She had overestimated the amount of energy she had left to wield this Infinite Domain at maximum capacity for this long, but it didn’t matter. As long as she drank a large amount of blood from her prospective mate afterward, it would replenish all that she’d spent and more.

The Death Blade began to glow in her hand and she shot barrages of light forward in devastating slashes, swinging her hand fast enough to create sonic booms with each motion with the air itself screaming from the speed.

She hit Apophis with space manipulation as well, invisible blades of compressed reality itself joining the light slashes. Light and space converged on the monster from every angle buthe wheel kept spinning, faster and faster.

“Hehehehe…”

A voice that didn’t come from her or Bloom sounded, making the Vampire Princess pause. The Shinigami stood upright now.

Its face, which had looked smooth before, had a thin line that was moving. She kept slashing as hard and as fast as she could, but the Shinigami took a step forward.

“Hehehehehahahahaha… Evolve…”

The wheel stopped and her slashes stopped working.

Her barrage stopped working as well.

Tej was forced to witness as Apophis walked through her Infinite Barrage without so much as a scratch while getting closer. She stomped her foot on the ground, exerting the force of her Domain to crush it with fear in her eyes.

“Evolve…”

The wheel spun once and stopped with finality. The thin line on its face had turned into a wide grin with brilliant white teeth… human teeth that looked perfect and unsettling.

Apophis was not a Shinigami that simply adapted to attacks like some lesser creature.

It evolved… It evolved past abilities entirely, rendering them completely useless while its body found natural, automatic ways to prevent the attacks from even reaching it in the first place.

The longer it remained in battle, the more exchanges it witnessed, the more dangerous it became with each passing second and there was no physical way to remove the Shinigami unless one possessed an ability that could directly attack the wheel on its head… which existed outside normal reality and outside this plane of existence entirely.

STEP!

Tej trembled violently as she released a desperate wave of blood throughout her entire domain with everything she had left, but it didn’t affect the Shinigami anymore. The attacks simply stopped working.

STEP!

“N-no…”

She took a step backward as if trying to escape out of her own Infinite Domain, but there was no way. She could only watch with horror as the Shinigami stood right in front of her.

“Don’t touch me! I am the Vampire Princess, you—”

She stabbed the Blade of Death directly at its face, but it simply brought out one hand and caught it. Then Soulbreaker slashed her in half.

“AHHHHHHH!!! IT BURNS!!!!!”

Tej’s bisected halves collapsed on the ground, her organs spilling out as they refused to regenerate. Tears filled the eyes of the Vampire Princess as Soulbreaker rose for a finishing blow then…

It stopped.

The Shinigami simply turned to mist completely and her Blood Domain vanished as well, leaving her in the wide crater.

‘I’ve… I’ve run out of blood…’ She thought weakly. ‘Bloom…’

The Familiar was there but it had gone into slumber. The Vampire Princess ate her pride and she began to crawl using both hands, pushing herself forward over the crater and across the long distance to her prospective mate.

After perhaps an hour of crawling with just her upper body, she could finally see him. He was healed and lying unconscious, as was the woman who’d summoned Apophis.

Tej had decided. She would enter a Blood Contract with this man and then she would kill that woman to ensure no more trouble remained.

She was a meter away and reached out her hand to finally grasp hold of his clothes… then a foot came down on her hand, crushing it and making her cry out in pain.

A woman manifested from the shadows, wearing a black uniform with a long black cape that blew in the wind.

“Who are you…?” Tej asked weakly.

He was just above her. If she could somehow get past this woman then—

No. It was impossible… This woman was perhaps on a level equal to, maybe even greater than, her own at full strength. She could feel it and she was related to that woman who had summoned that monstrosity.

“That’s the question I should be asking you,” the woman said, raising an eyebrow and adjusting the glasses on her face. “Who do you think you are to reach for my husband like that?”

“I am the First Princess… Princess Tejilia Raveneith of the Vampire God Clan and soon to be Vampire Queen,” Tej said as her vision went blurry. “And that man there is soon to be King of Vampires. Who are you?”

“Me? I’m Amagi Hakai, give or take, and I am his first official wife.” Hakai stated this simply. “Koya is too kind for his own good… Even an idiot can see that you have no good intentions for him at all.”

“What are you tal—”

“I imagine you plan to take control of his body, break his mind and make him submit to you, then make him something like a breeding pet while taking control of his power. Correct?”

Tej trembled. How did this woman know? She’d planned to use her control over vampires to make sure tha—

“By your reaction, I guess I’m correct…” Hakai sighed. “Don’t worry, there is another person like you who wants to do the same thing. It seems like all princesses are cut from the same cloth…”

She paused.

“Well, I did initially want to turn him into a breeding pet to find the best child. But fuck all of that.”

She wanted to create a clan now…

A clan of powerful children that came not only from her womb but from the wombs of other women. There would be mixed bloodlines… her own genes, genes from the other great clans. In essence, she wanted to bring the Amagi Clan into reality. He would be the Head while she was the Head Wife, with everyone else below them.

Hakai didn’t know when or how exactly, but she wanted him. Probably for some selfish reason but she did want him, and she wasn’t going to let some vampire princess or the world princess Hakua get their way with him.

He was hers first before anyone.. He was her Koya… Her husband… Her lover… even though she hadn’t met him first. It wouldn’t be bad to be a bit selfish, would it?

“How can you prove that you are truly wedded with my ma—”

“Look into my womb and you’ll see the fruit of our love,” Hakai interrupted and with her last bits of power, Tej looked into the woman’s womb to verify. This woman…

Was pregnant. She actually was pregnant. And the blood of the fetus, even while in the early stages of developing, seemed to be strong.

Very strong, in fact.

‘What strong genes…’ She thought as she turned to Koya. He was the kind of man her father had wanted her to reproduce with.

Their children would certainly be very strong.

“What do you want?” Tej asked.

“Simple. You leave your dominating mentality behind. You submit yourself wholly to your husband. We’re going to be living in my house after all, and if you try anything…” Hakai’s expression turned cold. “…I’ll kill you right this instant.”

Tej gritted her teeth… She was a queen… She was a dominator… She was meant to exact revenge for her dead worl—

“I agree.”

The foot left her broken palm, releasing the pressure. She crawled forward those final few meters, finally reaching Koya.

She used her good hand to nudge his neck gently, feeling the pulse of blood beneath the skin… all that powerful, delicious blood flowing through his veins then she bit down with her fangs, sinking deep into that muscle and sucking.

As soon as the first drop of his blood entered her mouth, it left her watering with overwhelming desire.

The taste was indescribable… it was rich, powerful, and intoxicating.

Her body completely regenerated in an instant as flesh reformed, bones reconnected, and the soul damage from Soulbreaker reversing itself as his blood worked through her system like the most potent healing elixir in existence.

In the distance, her severed lower half dispersed into crimson mist with the blood returning to her.

She used both hands to position him properly, turning his head for better access, gentle caresses along his jaw and neck as she sucked the blood eagerly. Her vampire wings spread outward… all four of them unfurling majestically covering both their faces in a curtain of black feathers while Hakai politely averted her eyes, giving them privacy for the ritual.

‘If I had long fangs, I could give him better hickeys too…’

Her thoughts trailed into pleasure as Tej kept drinking, feeling a boundary break in her chest… the final barrier between vampire and true vampire shattering.

More of her own blood flowed out from her body, covering them both in a protective cocoon of blood.

Koya’s hair gradually began growing longer, blond strands extending down past his shoulders and transforming him.

She tore away his shirt with eager hands, exposing his chest, and stroked her fingers appreciatively along his defined abs.

A two-wing tattoo engraved itself across his chest as she watched… it was the mark of her claim and the symbol of their Blood Contract, This was proof that he now belonged to her and she to him.

‘Yes~ Yes~ Give me more…’

The blood cocoon pulsed brighter with power radiating from within. Energy rose into the air from both of them, beaming up into the sky like a pillar of crimson light before descending back down like small shards of stardust that glittered in the air around them, settling on their skin like blessings from ancient gods.

Tej finally pulled away with a satisfied euphoric smile on her face as blood stained her lips crimson.

She had done it.

She had made herself a queen… and she had made her mate a King.