RD 2 Ch 25 (Patreon)

AN - These chapters are locked for editing for me right now, but I noticed comments about him drink the blood from the lion. I don't know how it got there, but the original was him putting it in his spatial ring. Anyway, I will fix that when I get things back from the editor.

Chapter 25

Nyx and I got clear of the birds, with piles of loot left behind us in a trail.

“Wow. You are a lot stronger.” Nyx uncoiled from me, her hand lingering on my bicep before she blushed and pulled away.

“Going to take you with me. Promise me you’ll keep my abilities quiet?” I felt like I could trust Nyx, but it still needed to be said.

She nodded. “Got some super special vampire ones that you want to keep hidden? I’m not so naive to think that this much money and power comes with a lot of greed. That, and my father said to trust no one.”

“Do you trust me?” I asked, not quite sure why the answer to that question felt important to me.

“Yeah… yeah, I do.” She looked down at the ground, and her tail played in the dirt. “Alright, let's get going. I need to practice moving with this thing.”

“If you can use your hair to pick up the loot, then take this.” I handed her a D-ranked ring after funneling everything over to the B-ranked one. It was a tight fight and less organized, but I’d live.

“Right.” She took it and handed the ring to one of her snakes who bobbed up and down at me.

I drew my hand to the side, and a blade of my own blood grew from my palm as several cyclops came out of the forest, attracted to our voices.

“Bran, they are strong! Stronger than Zane,” Nyx said, but her voice held more awe than fear.

I shot out a series of Blood Bolts as the monsters charged us. “Don’t worry. Sanguine Locking.” I said it aloud for her benefit.

All the cyclops locked up mid-stride and fell over.

“Go ahead and get to work. You can use those serpents and try to work on their skill rank.” I walked up to the first monster and stabbed my sword through its back.

“Holy shit.” Nyx slithered over tentatively until she was in range, and her serpents attacked in rapid fire on another cyclops. “They can’t move at all?”

“Not while I’m using the ability on them.” I moved on to the second while she was still trying to get her F-ranked Envenom ability to trigger on hers.

“How long does it last?” She assumed there must be a limit.

And there was, but with my spirit compared to theirs, it wasn’t going to fade anytime soon. “I’ll warn you if I need to release it. Right now, holding these is trivial. Might get harder or something might have a way to resist it.”

“Could you… uh… do this to a person?” she asked.

I glanced down at the cyclops I was killing and then back up to meet her eyes. “Yes. I can. Zane or Galen would be completely powerless if I did this to them.”

She let out a soft whistle and failed to inspect me again. “I really want to see your stats.”

“They are much higher than you are probably even thinking…” I trailed off, wondering if I should lie and dig myself deeper or tell the truth. In the end, I hesitated and let the second half of that sentence die before it reached my lips.

“Incredible. Can you tell me what your bloodline is? Or is that dangerous information to share?” she asked.

“It’s a titan bloodline like the Borrson Clan. Also, I might get physically larger as a result.” I sighed at that statement. “Going to have to find an answer to that.”

“Why?” She didn’t seem to mind.

“When you are sixteen feet tall, nothing really works. Your hand fits into nothing. Doorways, cars, planes. Everything is built for people, not giants.” Even in my past life, it started to become a little inconvenient.

“Oh.” Her mouth made a circle, and her eyes went wide. “Do they have giant… you know…”

I laughed. “Yes. That becomes pretty difficult with the size, too.”

“You should really do something about it then…” She blushed and trailed off before she perked back up. “Because of your two girlfriends. They’d be disappointed.”

I chuckled. She was a little infatuated with me. Probably because I’d been a big support during this instance. Afterwards, it would fade.

After killing the fifth cyclops, Nyx picked up a weapon and started to help her snakes, smashing hers with a femur until the dungeon dissolved the monster.

“Oh, it ranked up.” She smiled as the snakes danced around her, stretching out farther than before.

I started walking. We didn’t have time to stand around.

“Right. Looting. Go, little snake.” She handed it a ring, and it quickly danced from pile to pile with the ring, sucking up the loot before returning to her as she hurried to keep up with my long strides.

After a moment, she hit the stride of her slithering and actually caught up.

“I’m going to shout to bring them to us. Call out if your serpents notice anything.” I smiled at her before cupping my hands around my mouth and letting loose a yell loud enough that Nyx covered her ears.

In the distance, trees cracked, and cyclops roared in response.

I grinned from ear to ear. It was time to start clearing this instance.

***

“What do you mean exactly?” Zeus and Hercules sat hunched over a table while Circe stood to the side, leaning on the wall while a few of their close allies lingered around the room.

Simone was in the room because Circe wasn’t letting the woman out of her sight after two attempts to capture her had failed.

Galen was on the other end of the crystal ball. “The Nemean Lion was like a kitten to him. He knocked it around like it was nothing. The monster had over three thousand stats, half that in strength. It would have crushed Zane and me working together.”

“How is he that strong?” Hercules frowned. “Did the great ancestor give him that strength?”

“He didn’t say… uh…” Galen scratched his head. “He was pretty pissed at me. Part of my group was separated by the lion, and after he defeated it, he realized they didn’t have food and were in poor condition. He berated me for not taking care of them and not informing him of their situation.”

“He’s not wrong,” Circe spoke up. “At least he prioritized taking care of his clan members. That’s a good sign. Is he there?”

“No. He sent me back and left. Something about there being one more person who was separated.” Galen looked around.

Zane’s voice came from a distance. “Nyx. She was traveling with him earlier. I think he left her in a sanctuary to come to break up a fight here.”

“Right, he practically asked me to pass on that the clan can’t force him, and he’ll treat the clan how he finds they are treating… Simone, was it?” Galen hesitated on the name.

“That would be me,” Simone called out, walking up beside Circe.

“Then I think we should let Simone see more of the Clan. We certainly wouldn’t want her to feel cooped up at Odyssey.” Zeus gave a fake grandfatherly smile, though the white beard helped sell the look.

“I’m quite comfortable with Circe. She’s treated me well, and I know Bran had plans to join her. If nothing because he enjoys traveling.” Simone smiled sweetly.

Circe couldn’t really pick apart anything in her demeanor, but she knew a rejection when she heard one.

“Well, that seems unfair,” Hercules added in. “With this power that the ancestor gave him, it would be very important that there is no perceived favoritism.”

“Bran won’t have a problem with weathering others’ perceptions of him. He will take issue with unkind treatment, though,” Simone answered politely, though it barely blunted the words.

Both of the old men of their branches were clearly irritated that they weren’t being offered the reins to steer the carriage.

Bran presented a perfect opportunity for them to break the stalemate. After all, if one of the branches controlled the initiation and the Heros Bloodline, then they would undoubtedly be able to rise above the other. Even if the ability was not able to give better bloodlines to one, the perception would keep initiates more interested in joining the one that had more control.

And, showing that he could strip someone of their bloodline was an entirely different level. So many of the lower and mid-level of the clan leaned on their bloodline for a good portion of their strength.

Bran would be able to end any conflict instantly, not to mention if his abilities extended beyond the Heros bloodline… He’d be a potent weapon against the other clans.

“I think the most important thing is that we lock all information about Bran down.” Circe tried to sidestep the dick-measuring contest. “Bran has become a singular weak point for the clan moving forward, along with potentially being an extremely powerful weapon. If this is a system ability, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work on the other clans.”

Both men frowned in thought and glanced around at the people in the room. “Lock it down,” Zeus said, nodding at Hercules.

“It will be done.”

Circe let out a sigh of relief, happy the two men had finally agreed.

“We could send the entire initiation class to Tartarus,” Hercules offered.

“I could get them all?” A light voice percolated through the room as black mist seeped through the floor and pulled itself together into a beautiful woman with chestnut brown hair that seemed to glow with color because of how pale she was. She was carrying a daffodil and used it to swat playfully at Circe.

Circe smacked it away. “Pers, you’re early.”

“CeeCee, don’t be like that.” Persephone was all smiles, but Circe knew her personality could change in an instant into a violent gale that swallowed everything around her never to be seen again. “Someone was trying to poke into Tartarus, an Elle Heros. I need her handed over, pretty please.”

The room went quiet at the statement.

“If she’s already dead, her body will suffice.” Persephone took a long sniff of the flower and sighed.

“Aunt.” Zeus bowed his head respectfully. “There was part of the conversation that you missed. We cannot touch Elle Heros at present.”

Given that he was the second of his name, Zeus was actually the youngest present. That white beard was all an act. Circe wanted to roll her eyes but kept her decorum.

“Nephew.” Persephone tapped him with the daffodil. “Why not?”

Hercules gestured at the orb around the table. “The initiates in the instance have troubling news. The level of the monsters is rising back to the original one hundred and thirty. Meanwhile, one of the initiates says that the Blood Dragon is going into hibernation and has given him the ability to control the Heros Bloodline.”

“The solution is obvious,” Persephone said. “Once the instance has stabilized, we go in and verify the claims. I, for one, would love to meet the ancestor when I’m not a weak little level one.” She waved her flower around angrily. “It is so vital to our clan that it is about time that we leaders had a face-to-face conversation with the ancestor.”

Zeus rubbed his chin while Hercules nodded resolutely.

Circe checked Simone’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. It was the first time that the woman had been worried, but none of the others had noticed. “Is that wise? If it has entered hibernation, it might not take well to us waking it.”

Persephone scoffed. “It will have to adjust. The ancestor has acted within his pact with our clan, but I, for one, think it needs to understand the strength of the clan it now works for.” She was pointed in those last few words. “And I will still have Elle Heros. No one is to know the location of Tartarus except me. For all these years, we have stayed secret because we have kept an absolute veil of secrecy, only myself crossing between it. That some young woman has tried to breach it, I take that personally.”

“She’s under my care for the time being. Perhaps we should wait until the matter of the Clan’s bloodline is settled before doing anything rash,” Circe tried.

Persephone turned on her, the woman’s eyes glowing a ghostly green and bubbling at the edges as if souls were trying to push their way out and away from her anger. “Ceecee. When did you get so bold as to defy me?” The room was subsumed in darkness.

“Stop with the theatrics.” Circe sighed. “Matters of the clan should come above any of the individual branches. In the same way we were just discussing putting everything aside to deal with Bran, that includes Tartarus.” Wherever Persephone had taken everyone in the fourth branch, she had grown increasingly powerful.

Persephone’s eyes flashed before they returned to normal. She bopped Circe on the nose with the daffodil. “Silly, Ceecee. We have time before we deal with Bran. I’ll just go and get her myself in the meantime.” The woman exploded into a tornado of twisting darkness and disappeared from the room.

“Are you going to do anything?” Simone asked in the silent room.

“Elle Heros is already captured,” Zeus answered simply. “One of the reasons that Persephone is in charge of Tartarus is that no one can follow her, nor keep up with her.”

“Well then”—Circe put an arm around Simone, hoping Simone would be able to calm Bran down when he came back and found out what had just happened—“I’ll be taking care of Simone. Please, both of you stop Pers from getting into too much trouble while she’s here.”