Empire Of Souls - Chapter 167

“Don’t waste our time sc.u.m.” growled Anathema with some disgust.

“That’s enough Anathema.”

Anathema grumbled but kept her mouth shut and instead turned away. She was completely unsatisfied, but she was hesitant to cause trouble. Not because she was afraid of these mortals or because of Cladem’s order, but because of their master.

“You, mortal. He is here, isn’t he? I can feel him within you. How strange. Do not try to deny it, I already know. We Daemon are exceedingly sensitive to the soul. Do not be concerned, we are here to aid you. This here is a welcoming gift. We two offer our allegiance, and our service, as is the will of our master.”

His voice was grating and it caused Grobak to squint with some pain. How the being knew that Aleks was watching everything through Grobak was uncertain. Aleks’s ‘Astral Soul’ ability was extremely difficult to detect, but not impossible. However, it shouldn’t have been possible by a being at the Demigod level. Maybe a god could detect the ability if they were especially paying attention.

“Then I won’t keep it from you. My master is watching. Who are you and what do you want?”

Grobak didn’t keep up any pretenses and just went straight to the point. If those beings wanted him dead, he would already be dead. It was too late for him to escape at this point and they had said they were here to help. Knowing that, he wasn’t too worried. They were powerful enough to crush him with ease, why waste words lying if they planned to kill him?

“We are friends from the great beyond.” Saying that, Cladem removed his hood.

Although he had a face, it wasn’t what Grobak expected to see. His head was ethereal and seemed to contain no physical form. He had never seen anything like it before. He appeared something like a ghost, but it was more tangible than that. Grobak was at a loss for words and he stared intently at the being in front of him. Cladem’s face suddenly shifted and then became more solid, taking a somewhat demonic form with large horns growing out of the top of his head, and extending backwards. The horns grew over a foot long and were as thick as three fingers side by side. They mingled well with the long jet black hair that also began to grow out of his newly physical form.

Cladem grinned seeing their reaction, “Just be glad that you have not seen my true form. If you had, you would be paralyzed with fear.”

Anathema similarly removed her hood and when she turned around, what greeted Grobak was a terrifyingly beautiful, yet demonic like face. She too had long horns, but they only added to her exotic yet demonic beauty and were much more thin and elegant than her companion. Her hair was extremely long and braided and her complexion was like a smooth and pure ebony with no imperfections. Both their eyes were strange, seemingly inhuman and without the same style of a mortal. Their pupils swirled with a variety of dark colors. They were truly terrifying, yet magnificent in their physical forms. However, as Cladem had mentioned, these were not their true forms.

Grobak was stunned for a moment as he looked intently at Anathema, but he soon regained his senses. Mostly because she was glaring at him as if she wanted to devour him right at that moment. Grobak shivered and lamented his fate. Yet another powerful woman that made him shiver and feel the need to watch his back. It was irksome and he despised the feeling.

Grobak coughed, “You still haven’t answered my questions.”

Cladem stood proudly with his arms crossed, “I am Cladem, a son of War.”

Without changing her expression, Anathema also introduced herself, “I am Anathema, a daughter of Conquest.”

“It isn’t necessary for you to know more, our names are enough. We have come a long way and even lost two of brethren to arrive in this place. We chanced upon these mortals and thought it would be a fitting offering to your master. They seemed to be heading towards you with malicious intent.”

Cladem motioned towards the mass of corpses littered across the pass and grinned. His teeth were sharp and not like normal teeth at all. They looked like the teeth of a beast. Everything about these two seemed frightening, but they seemed to hold no ill will towards him, so Grobak glanced towards the corpses and nodded.

“It would have been difficult to fight so many, even with me here. Those are vampires, aren’t they? This is the Blood Guard, I have heard about them from the tribal warriors. Just a moment.”

Grobak stepped past the two strange beings and stood there for a short time. It wasn’t clear what he was doing and his actions seemed strange, but only he and his master knew what was going on. He was collecting the souls of the deceased which had yet to return to the cycle of reincarnation. They wouldn’t do so for three days and so Grobak was able to collect the souls of around 10,000 advanced class beings. Grobak knew this was a huge harvest which would please his master and Aleks, who was watching, saw this as an excellent opportunity to gain a lot of ‘Soul Potential’.

The only unfortunate thing was that the vampires had no souls present in their bodies and he wouldn’t be able to gain anything from them. Vampires were a type of devil spawn which had fully given their souls to their master. He could also in a way be called their father, or ancestor. Vampires were not quite devils, but also not quite mortals. Although the two Daemon saw them as mortals, they were not entirely mortals anymore because of their devilish bloodline. The Blood Sovereign could be considered to be half devil and his abilities allowed him to turn mortals into vampires like him, but at the cost of their souls. Their souls were seemingly devoured by the Blood Sovereign, but this wasn’t exactly accurate.

In a way, the Devil Sovereign was a soul depository and within him were the souls of all the vampires turned by him and his descendents. This allowed his power to grow, but there were quite a few negative aspects of this. It was too difficult for the Devil Sovereign to ascend higher than his current peak and he would most likely forever be a Demigod unable to become a true Devil. This was also a heretical path and it earned him the ire of the churches who often hunted down vampires and it was difficult for any of them to leave their area of the Wilds.

There were those who did leave and preyed on mortals in other lands, but they were usually hunted down rather quickly. There were also other true noble vampires who were like the Blood Sovereign and were half devils and much closer to Devilkind than mortals. None had reached the level of the Blood Sovereign though, as they were often killed before becoming too powerful. In the Nine Hells there were many such mixed breeds, but they were considered impure and treated not much better than trash. To Devils, bloodline mattered and the closer their blood was to purity, the more powerful and prestigious they were. This essentially meant that only those closest to the fallen angels or fallen angels themselves could truly be called the nobility of Devilkind.

“I’m done, we can leave now.” Grobak turned away from the thousands of corpses and jumped back onto his giant wolf.

The two Daemon glanced at each other questioningly and then followed Grobak. They had felt a strange sensation, but it had passed quickly and it wasn’t something they could see or understand even with their power and sight. Something had happened, but they couldn’t see through its mysteries. This was intriguing to them and they wondered what kind of power could be hidden from their sight. Perhaps this secret was related to the reason they had been sent to this place by their progenitors themselves, the Four Hors.e.m.e.n who served Apocalypse, the Lord of Destruction. After returning with the two Daemon, the Barbarian warriors were surprised to see two strange beings of unknown origin accompanying Grobak. At first they were curious, but as the two Daemon came near, an oppressive feeling came over them.

The tribal warriors were overcome with fear and they kept their distance, pretending that the two didn’t exist. They were truly too terrifying and the many thousands of warriors who had followed Grobak to this place were now marching as if they were walking on eggshells. The Barbarian army had come with great fanfare, hurrying to the pass to fight a glorious battle against the vampires. However, when they arrived not only had all the vampires and their army been defeated, but they had found two monstrous beings who could easily crush them just as easily.

“Do you mind retracting your aura? You are frightening my warriors. Look at them, they look like they all have sticks up their asses. They might drop dead any second from forgetting to breathe.”

Cladem was surprised by how coarse Grobak’s words were, but noticing the effect his aura was having on the Barbarians he nodded, “I forgot how weak you mortals are. Anathema, retract your aura.”

Anathema scoffed, but complied with Cladem’s command. After the two had finally retracted their auras, the entire army of Barbarians breathed a sigh of relief. They had thought they might die just by being near these two. Even though they no longer felt that oppressive aura, the presence of these two mysterious beings was still stifling and they no longer were as rowdy as they were before. Instead, it was almost quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Even their steps had somehow become lighter.