Nightmare System - Volume 1 Chapter 29 Unshakeable Fealty

Lirger, for the first time in his life, was scared. This was an enemy that could create copies of himself each one almost as fast as the original, had an incredibly strong sword that could cut through him as if he was butter and his touch would make him rot to the point that his arm could no longer be recovered. Lizardfolk had great regenerative capabilities, coupled with his vampire regeneration, Lirger never even considered trying to train himself on that point. If only he could get his arm back as some Vampire Lords could do.

Lirger yelled with all his might and yelled: “You will all die!” He took the sword out that was etched inside himself, the handle now visible after he cut his arm off. He flew into the sky to lick his wounds in a sense and held the sword, bent on using it on Hell to make him regret. But as soon as he properly grasped it, his mind went into a shock and he started falling while gripping the sword.

Lirger found himself in an imaginary world of nightmares and sweet memories, all attacking his mind with a scary demon-like figure looking down on him.

“You dare use me, too?” the demonic figure’s voice reverberated in Lirger’s ears, causing them to bleed from the sheer power of the voice. He felt so small and defenceless. He saw himself losing the war against Hell, he saw the image of him holding his skull, playing with his corpse as his army was littered on the ground.

He then suddenly found himself a child, no other from the lizardfolk wanting to play with him, everyone shunned him as a freak. He then saw himself razing his own village into the ground. He saw the village around him was only hell, made of fire and screams and crying and her mother right before himself, begging him to stop.

This was a memory he had shut in a small box in his mind to never open again but he was there once more, nonetheless, unable to stop himself from killing his own mother all over again. It all felt so real, as if he was really experiencing everything once more. Lirger had experienced all the sorrow in his life of hundreds of years at once. And all the happiness he experienced during his time, he found it lost by his hands, now. The original memories not matching the events taking place now. He fell on his knees in mere seconds.

“Pathetic,” the demon yelled. “I will kill that audacious kid for you, so sleep forever, like a broken toy of mine.”

Lirger’s cries turned into laughter before he even realised what was going on and his laughter turned into an incredible sorrow. He had no coherent thoughts left in his mind

Hell appeared in front of Lirger and took the sword away, swinging with all his mind to chop his head off. He didn’t understand why this beast suddenly got knocked unconscious, but he was not nice enough to investigate or give him another chance.

Just as he started chopping the head off with the sword, just as it barely sunk into Lirger’s neck, the sword disappeared from his hand and appeared in Lirger’s, who swung the sword in an arc in the air with immense speed and strength in the next moment, his yellow eyes completely bloodshot, creating a beautiful hue of red and yellow.

“How the-” Hell was surprised as he realised that the Lirger was holding the sword, the sword that tries to control the mind of the user. He was supposed to be completely unaffected by spirit and mental attacks, but even his mental barriers were somewhat bypassed by the sword when he held it. It was a given Lirger would be thoroughly screwed if he tried to use the sword.

“Are you Lirger?” Hell asked.

“This body is good, quite strong,” Lirger said with a feral voice shadowing his original voice, looking at his hands and making a punch, as if sizing up the creature he currently was at the moment.

“Not Lirger, got it. Shit.” Lirger was already trouble enough, but fighting the Sword of Blood’s demon while he possesses a boss-level creature was simply too much.

He had to finish this quick. He retreated, created another copy and created a brand in his palm. Using him as a suicide bomber at an opportune time could be enough. The copy new what to do, he used his speed to maintain some distance from Lirger.

“I am here to finish our fight you ran away last time from!” Lirger, or rather, the sword demon roared.

“I remember you losing it, ya bastard!” Hell yelled back at the rapidly approaching creature who was now even faster thanks to the possession of the sword.

“Does that mean I am actually not allowed to use the sword either?” Hell thought to himself, remembering the ones who aren’t allowed to use it was cursed by it. That was a likely case if that was the curse. Then again, perhaps that’s also how one proved worthy.

Hell cursed at Player Killer in his mind and was ready to receive Lirger, who, in mere moments, stopped in mid-air and began flying toward Aurus, the commander. Hell immediately followed after and was slightly faster than him as long as he knew where he planned on going. The demon did not stop, thus neither did Hell as he finally reached Aurus and took a defensive position. He checked his mana.

*Mana: 500/4055*

“Damn it,” he berated himself in his mind momentarily when he realised that he still felt his connection to all 12 of his current copies, none of them had died yet. That was good.

Lirger was seen in the air after this brief contemplation, diving down toward Aurus with the Sword of Blood and Hell was ready to attack along with his copy. He took out the Dagger of Nature’s Wrath. Paralysing Lirger’s body was another way to take him down if he could get a few good hits in. Lirger, when there were less than 10 metres to Hell and Aurus, changed his direction mid-air, heading forward behind them.

Hell held his breath momentarily and everything in the world seemed to have come to a stop. He couldn’t move faster either, but he could think faster.

“So this is one of those famous moments I read about, is it?” he thought to himself.

Hell had realised at that very moment that, Lirger changed his direction. He was heading for the only person Hell truly cared about at the moment, behind everyone, who was watching the fight with hope.

With Aurus’ use of Pseudo Hells, they were actually winning for now. Hell had a volatile personality at times and loved going all out from the start. But since the copies were said to follow his orders, they became a safety net for Hell’s army that he himself could never be as such, controlling the flow of the battle without many casualties. There were currently around 240 vampires on Lirger’s side along with 11 minotaurs and still 65 vampires on Hell’s side.

Theperes saw a dark figure in the sky blotting the sun momentarily as her eyes adjusted right after. A good sight was one of the perks of becoming a vampire, after all. It was Lirger, who had been fighting Hell. Lirger was moving so fast that she had no time to react herself, feeling as if she was watching death coming for her when two hands held her on her shoulders and threw her out of the way.

She could only see her lover’s trusty subordinate Porter for a moment when the dark figure crashed at him like a train, as if declaring that he would be no more after such a hit. Hell was beside Theperes then, in the following moment. He had used multiple warps to get here quickly. He checked his mana once more.

*Mana: 307/4055*

Aurus was shocked by himself as well and he made a signal in the air, calling back 6 of Pseudo Hells and telling the remaining two to stay behind with the army as he followed up with changing the army’s position in battle, turning into a more defensive one. He couldn’t interfere much in a fight of that calibre, but he knew who could.

“This is good enough, too.” The sword demon roared at Hell. “Move another inch and I’ll rip his heart out.” Lirger’s claws easily dug into Porter’s chest, his fingers caressing it as he vomited some blood out.

Hell stopped and yelled back: “I thought you wanted to finish things with me, isn’t this very cowardly of you?”

The sword demon, puppeteering Lirger’s body, formed a creepy smile and gripped Porter’s heart tighter, causing the man to convulse involuntarily.

“Stop!” Hell yelled. “What do you want?”

Lirger’s hands relaxed and he took his hand out of the vampire’s chest. “What I want is for you to suffer. What kind of demon I am if I can’t even break a kid?” he said, not dropping the creepy smile.

Before the demon could talk further, Porter yelled, which was allowed by the demon. He always loved it when they begged for mercy.

“My Lord, my brothers and sisters!” Porter yelled with all his might. He could not yell as such again had it not been for his regenerative abilities, almost destroying his vocal cords.

He attracted the attention of many vampires from both sides when they all saw their leading figures engaged in a deadly banter.

“I will never be a burden to Lord Hell! We will never bow down to another!” Porter yelled and turned his right hand into a claw. The demon knew it was impossible for this body to be hurt by such a puny attack, especially in his current form, so he watched his next move with a widened smile.

Porter looked right into the eyes of his Lord as he gracefully, with one move, ripped his own heart out and threw it out. The smile etched on the demon’s face disappeared immediately as he turned the lifeless corpse to face himself to make sure that indeed, he had killed himself. There was an incredible silence in the air. Even the enemy was taken aback by what just happened, a high-ranking vampire taking his own life just so that he would not be a burden.

This caused the vampires from Hell’s base to finally tap into the fury that now burned inside each of them and a rush of adrenaline they were too scared and inexperienced to tap into before. They had all seen what kind of man Porter was. His only wish was to be useful to Lord Hell as much as he could. He tried to physically improve his body to the extent that he almost had a heart attack once. Which meant that the strain on his veins was so much because of training that, at one point his heart tried to give up on him, which was the only thing that could stop his training.

But he was gone. Porter, the trusty subordinate and the eye-candy of all female vampires, was gone. The vampires from Hell’s base all looked at the army before their eyes, none of them moving an inch. They needed anything at all to happen to break out of this paralysing anger and adrenaline churning inside themselves in speeds they thought could never be possible. They had to vent out, in some way, in any way.

“Who knew?” Hell murmured to himself. “It seems I considered him a friend, as well.”

Lirger threw the lifeless body away as if throwing trash, which became the signal for Pseudo Hells, and including Hell himself, to attack at the sword demon at the same time, using everything they got. Hell, the closest one would bear the brunt of the attack so that his copies could finish him off.

The sword demon, although surprised, still had a body of his own and wielded the sword. Seeing Hell recklessly charging into himself, he made his second mistake by thinking that it was just a child before him, after all. He slashed Hell’s heart in half to finish him off. As long as you destroyed a large portion of the heart, it would be enough to kill a vampire as well.

Hell let himself be hit by Lirger’s ability and immediately used the brand: Healing. The brand almost didn’t work as it was slightly damaged as well. Lucky for Hell, the cut was too precise and too fast to create too big of a tear. Hell was healed until he fell onto the ground. But as he fell, right after he was cut, he saw 5 Pseudo Hells pierce him with the copies of the Sword of Blood and the last one he created landed a palm attack and activated the Explosion brand. 2 of them were missing and Hell did not feel a connection to them anymore. It was fine, he still had enough.

“Kill them all! Lirger has fallen!” Hell yelled from the ground. The explosion was enough to kill 2 of his copies, but the remaining 10 would be enough to turn the tides of the battle once more. He glanced at his party and saw Leila landing her dagger into the charred-black skinned minotaur’s head using her Shadow Reach. Although she didn’t have enough strength to directly damage these creatures, she could still dispatch these creatures as long as she had some sort of access down under their skin.

Leon was beside her, it was probably that he landed the first attack, allowing a good hit from his sister. They were truly a good team.

Right after Hell yelled and the enemy troops saw Lirger blown into bits with an absolutely enraged army attacking them, they truly felt fear even with their greater numbers. A Vampire Lord was not only the commander, but also the strongest creature in the base. Losing their leader would mean that there was someone on the other side who could kill the strongest creature they had ever seen.

Miur gazed at the battlefield and sighed. “If only you stalled them a bit, I would dispatch the other copies of him, too. Oh well, this base is done.”

Miur saw how furious Hell’s army looked, so instead of immediately interfering, he would wait until his side’s current numbers dwindled to half of what it is now. He looked at the 9 remaining minotaurs and 3 party members handling them with 2 more copies of Hell helping. He melted into a shadow and moved to them. A small chat with them could not hurt, could it? Even a time of crisis could be an opportunity.