Chapter 144 - Revenge Can Go Both Ways (***WARNING: This chapter can be a little brutal, read the pre-chapter note***)

***Warning to the readers: This chapter can be a little bit brutal, especially towards the end.  Let me know what you all think about it and if I should edit it.***  I'll likely heavily edit this chapter various ways (also the part about him saying this is a simulation isn't talking about the world, rather the event that the All Spirit brought them to - something I need to clarify when editing***

Chapter 144 – Revenge Can Go Both Ways

The earth shuddered as Trey crashed into it, sending up debris as a crater formed underneath the impact where he made contact. Talsh’Noc’Un screeched its rage as torrents of chaos bellowed out, the blade cleanly cutting through Lord Okt’s attempt to block in one fell swoop and traveling forward through another five of them standing nearby – with over fifteen of the nearby vampire leadership being thrown backwards head over heels for hundreds of yards.

The impact was so massive that the army behind Trey buckled and quaked at the knees, and the devil that’d thrown him was laughing hysterically in the sky above at the absolute destruction they’d caused together.

Trey’s rage was climbing, slowly ticking up in percentage by the second as red streams of light ran across the veins of his face outwards from his eyes. Eleknar’s burning desire to kill, intermixed with Talsh’Noc’Un’s own, was all encompassing – and as he picked himself up off the ground and lifted his demonic jaws to the heavens, Trey let out a bellowing roar of challenge.

Chaos lightnings of black and red erupted across the landscape as infernal power answered his call. Grass and earth vaporized as the one remaining man Trey hadn’t managed to severely injure with his initial attack stumbled backwards in gawking horror as the minor demon lord he’d come to kill turned out to be far more than he’d bargained for.

Jegrakus’ spiked, red and black armor was partially ruined – even though it’d been made from the highest quality materials and enchantments his household had come across back on his home planet. His right arm was broken, though quickly mending with blood magics swirling about him like a small cyclone amidst a far greater tycoon of chaos and black magics emanating out from Eleknar’s Heir. The pureblooded vampire warlord still couldn’t believe that a creature at such a lower level than he was could have triggered the flashing notification he was gaping at, and he immediately realized that he’d made a grave mistake upon coming here to aid House Okt.

WARNING

WARNING

WARNING

BOSS FIGHT HAS BEEN INITIATED.  TREY BON, ELEKNAR’S HEIR AND THE VATOSIS INFERNA, HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED AS A BOSS RATED ENEMY RELATIVE TO YOUR ARMY’S SKILL LEVEL.  KILLING TREY WILL RESULT IN A HEROIC TRAIT FOR ALL SURVIVORS.  PREPARE YOURSELF.

Trey’s status page basics:

-          Name: Trey Bon, Eleknar’s Heir and The Vatosis Inferna

-          Maximums: 3922 HP, 2214 MP, 2270 SP, 1/1 DP

-          Race: Tainted Human

-          Level 102

-          Class: Infernal Summoner, Horror Crusader

-          Chaos, Dark, Necromancy, Blood, Abyss, Curse, Void, and Apocolypse Attributes

-          Traits: Vatosis Inferna, Earthborn, Void Essence, Resilience, Dreadlord Vorshok’s Bane, Predator, Aversion to Divine, Horror Crusader, Unholy Script of Domination, Shadowform, Aspect of the Devil: Claws, Aspect of the Devil: Mask, Aspect of the Devil: Tail, Aspect of the Devil: Horns, Obscuring Mask, Vampiric Speed, Vampiric Strength, Vampiric Reflexes, Vampiric Fangs, Eyes of the Bat, Legs of the Spider King

Jegrakus slowly drew his battle axe in front of him as his right arm clicked into socket and hissed at the creature that’d landed nearby – ignoring the large devil as it rapidly flew overhead to pursue the vampire’s allies that’d been tossed away like ragdolls. There was no one that could help him now, not against a creature like this, and if he was going to get out of this alive – it was up to him… and only him.

The vampire stared down his opponent for a good five seconds after that, allowing the blood magics to build up around him in a wave of red liquid like a defensive dome against the onslaught of Trey’s chaotic and spontaneous eruptions. Eleknar’s Heir, though listed as a human, was anything but… and Jegrakus wasn’t entirely sure if he’d read the notification right as he looked the creature over.

Trey had four, massive black spider legs now holding him up off the ground of the crater he’d created by a solid twelve feet high - with dust he’d sent skywards being evaporated by the surrounding aura of red and black lightning storms. Trey’s long, ribbon-like tail swayed back and forth in anticipation as his legs gracefully dangled down below – his shirtless body slowly being encompassed by the black synthesizer assassin suit he’d acquired from Teretog as black mithril and ebony encompassed his body up to his neck. His claws were fully extended to two feet in length beyond his fingers on his left side – beckoning to the vampire with the razor appendages as his right hand gripped the massive Sword of Ruin that shattered the air with wails and screeches promising death. The face underneath his curved horns had turned into that of a devils – set in a wide, lipless and permanent grin with obsidian sharp teeth each the size of a long knife as hellfire began to collect in his throat.

“Little vampire…” Eleknar said through a fit of Trey’s cackling, the two voices overlapping one another as the vampire’s blood turned to ice underneath the mental push of the infamous void essence. “You have come a long ways from home… just to die…”

With a roar that echoed out above the battle and a crash of red lightning from the heavens upon Trey’s position – the Vatosis Inferna rushed the vampire leader with immense speed on all four of the carrying spider legs.

The vampire’s blood dome expanded and blew forward in a shower of needle-like shower as Jegrakus roared his defiance and launched himself ahead to meet the charge – only to be blown back like a fly in a hurricane as his axe met Trey’s sword.

The warlord’s breastplate was torn off immediately after the axe was ripped from his hands and hurled in pieces to the left – sending the vampire screeching with surprise head over heels with a deep gash through his ribcage before getting hit again with a blur of shadowy movement he couldn’t even follow with his eyes.

No… that hadn’t been physical movement. That’d been a teleport.

Jegrakus was sent like a torpedo at supersonic speed as he crashed into the earth with a spray of debris and the air was expelled from what remained of his lungs. He coughed up blood, weakly clawing himself back up from yet another crater that’d been formed in the field as his mind reeled at the unexpected turn of the battle.

How was this possible? Eleknar’s Heir was supposed to be freshly picked, a human of all things, and was only level 102! He wasn’t supposed to have been the Vatosis Inferna as well! Did the great houses back home KNOW about this?! Had they sent him to die against this creature as some kind of power move? Since WHEN had Eleknar’s Heir been named the Vatosis Inferna as well? Wouldn’t the Angels have stomped him out of existence by now if that’d been the case?

According to the information the undead empires back home had recently compiled on him, Eleknar’s Heir was supposed to be no more than a very minor demon lord at this stage. He hadn’t even been around for more than three years, there was NO POSSIBLE WAY this kind of growth should be present! Jegrakus had come into this fight believing it’d be an easy picking for fame and glory, a chance for expansion into another realm with the permission of an elder god, but what he found was the equivelant of what he’d expect if Eleknar had been allowed to grow for another century or more! Jerakus would have NEVER tried to fight Eleknar in a condition such as that, as EVERYONE knew just what kind of malice and hate that vile essence could unleash upon his enemies if given enough time to grow!

Jegrakus even had known about the Heir potentially wielding weapons of incredibly high tier. That still didn’t explain just how the hell the Heir was giving such an output of raw power… even if he was able to channel them somehow, his body should be decaying rapidly due to overuse. Even if the amulet DID give him massive amounts of mana, health and stamina like Tilukt, Bringer of Plagues had warned Jegrakus about - How was the heir summoning that kind of power all at once? Wouldn’t the human’s vessel limit the output?

The vampire lord would have scoffed at the ridiculousness of the word ‘human’ used to describe this creature if he could have, but he was too busy struggling to get to his knees and coughing to do so.

Jegrakus was still swept up in his own disbelief and utter shock at being manhandled like this so thoroughly when a sharp spider’s appendage rammed itself through his right hand – impaling it thoroughly and staking it to the shuddering ground.

Jegrakus gave a gurgled scream before he felt his mana being completely suppressed, and although he tried with all his might to fight it – his magical control had been completely nullified. A slim tail wound its way around his bloodied neck and yanked – drawing the vampire warlord up like a noose as he gaggled from underneath his dented helmet and flailed about in the air like a fish.

Jegrakus felt the helmet being peeled off bar sharp claws, and his eyes went even wider as the metal was removed to come face to face with Trey’s wide grin only an inch away. Crimson lightning flashed across the sky and the ground quaked as dozens of chaos balls and crisscrossing clouds of shadow blades began filling the air. The demon lord holding Jegrakus in place cackled malevolently, drawing a single X in the vampire warlord’s bruised and burned face with a sharp claw before turning and pointing his enormous great sword in the direction of the vampiric army clawing their way up the hill.

“Obliterate.”

The greatsword swelled with unholy light, let out a ear-piercing scream, and exploded like a plasma cannon into the backside of the army Jegrakus had brought with him. The attack was simultaneously followed with hundreds of chaos balls and thousands of shadow blades as they tore into the helpless army like a nuclear strike that shook the entire hill – ripping them from life and limb effortlessly along the entire back half that left well over a thousand of them dead instantaneously with even more succumbing to death from their wounds over the next twenty seconds.

Trey turned back to the vampire leader he was strangling at eye level, cackling at the look of sheer hopelessness and begging, before tightening his hold.

The vampire’s head popped off like a bottlecap, flipping end over end to bounce along the ground as his ruined body fell to the ground underneath Trey’s feet with a splat.

***

“FIND LADY OKT AND BRING HER TO ME ALIVE!” Trey roared over the crowds as the vampire ranks broke file and began fleeing back towards the castle in a mad rush at what was less than a fourth of what’d initially been sent out to fight with.

Carol stood watching in stunned amazement and simultaneous hatred as her cousin wiped the floor with any vampires that came near, fully coming to an understanding of just how much stronger he’d become even in the short time between Vorganoth’s demise and this current battle.

How had such a powerup been accomplished so quickly?

She shook her head, noting that the vampires making it back to the keep were successfully using some kind of force shields to keep Trey and his pursuers at bay, and even Sithis was having a hard time penetrating the defenses while the lightning towers ferociously defended the walls with rapid-fire streams of magic.

She grimaced in distaste, again feeling a familiar fury rise up inside her as the wounds from her whipping flared up. “That cocky little bitch… I hope those vampires gut you and hang your corpse from the walls!”

Carol spat in Trey’s direction, barely recognizing her cousin for the man she’d known him to be and only really seeing the demon he’d become. But as her eyes fell to the injured men and women around her – she could appreciate just how well the battle had gone for their side. Silvara was standing beside her too, mildly injured with a laceration along her left wrist – but otherwise was fine. Thousands of bodies littered the hill, the vast majority of them being vampires, and a river of blood was running down off of it to pool at the bottom where prisoners were being lined up by Ezdeath and put in chains for enslaving later on.

God how Carol wanted to gut that succubus bitch. The same could be said for Rivia… knowing how killing either of them would cause Trey very real pain. The way he looked at them made Carol sick, and she grew more furious by the second as she thought of how Trey’d betrayed her trust and how he’d belittled her in front of her own people.

She was just about to stomp off back to her tent, when she saw Nothel and Osi standing together along the battle’s edge – having been instructed not to participate and stay safe in the backlines. Carol didn’t know either of them well, but she did know them well enough to realize that they were both some of Trey’s concubines – and that Nothel in particular was one that Trey professed to ‘care’ about.

Trey’s cousin glanced back over the battlefield to where Trey was still chasing down stragglers of the enemy, and then to where Rivia and Ezdeath were binding prisoners with Ikt at the base of the hill. She looked to where Izumi and Telipe were hopping out of their mech to do a happy dance with one another, and to where Atharost and Sithis were flying overhead to circle around and divebomb another group of vampires far off to Carol’s right.

There was no one else but vetteresies around… and even they were further down the hill doing a cleanup of the resistance.

Carol’s eyes narrowed in on her targets, chest heaving as her teeth gritted – and she focused all her rage onto the two unsuspecting vampiric women that’d for so long known only suffering at the hands of the Okt Coven. Carol nudged Silvara, nodded over to where Osi and Nothel were standing, and drew her sword. “Payback for what Trey did to us earlier. Let’s go.”

Silvara grinned, nodded, and drew her own sword as well as the two vettersie warriors approached Trey’s two women from the back.

Just as Carol was within two feet of Nothel, the previous slave woman turned and smiled in recognition – only to have a longsword shoved up her belly and into her lung.

Nothel screamed as holy fire erupted from up inside her as Osi was cut down beside her by Silvara. Nothel clawed, desperately trying to fight Carol off and pulling at the sword as her agonized wails rose higher. Her soul began to shred as Carol hissed and poured her malice into a new adjustment to the holy attack – purifying the vampire entirely to burn her very essence away as the soul began to crumble.

With wide eyes, and a final gasp, the frail, burned and tortured body of Nothel slumped to the ground with Carol’s sword still sticking out her back. Carol smiled as the last vestige of Nothel’s soul was burned away, forever erasing the woman from existence, and turned to make sure Silvara had done the same with Osi.

Trey’s cousin nodded in the shadow of a tent, dragging both bodies back into the tent with her and then taking another nearby vampire’s corpse and putting it in their with the dead girls. “Good job… now let’s get out of here. We’ll leave their bodies and blame it on the vampire attack from House Okt if anyone asks about it. Ok?”

Silvara sheathed her sword and kicked Osi’s corpse with a sneer, pulling her long silver hair back behind her green-tinted helmet with a satisfied noded. “Agreed. Let us leave… before anyone has a reason to point the finger at us.”

As the two women turned to hurriedly walk away from the scene of murder, neither one of them saw Lueth’s uncertain stare following them as the injured officer hesitated before turning heel and marching off in Yastiel’s direction. She’d need to be told of this… because if anyone knew what to do now, it’d be her.

That princess and shamed mouthpiece could not be allowed to ruin Agnude’s plans.

***

A single tear ran down Trey’s cheek as he thought about how he’d found Nothel’s burned, skewered body laying in the tent last night.  The scream of fury he’d unleashed had died down into a wail of internal pain that he couldn’t quite place… and it’d taken everything inside of him to stuff that feeling back away over that next hour in order to come to terms with reality.

Nothel was gone… and thanks to Yastiel and Lueth - Trey knew exactly who to blame.

Carol’s betrayal wasn’t something Trey’d entirely expected… though he wouldn’t have been so surprised and hurt by it if it hadn’t involved the death of someone he cared about.  Nothel… had been what Trey considered to be a truly good person.  And Carol had taken her away from this life in a petty attempt to get back at Trey for ‘usurping’ authority that was never hers to begin with.

This punishment he’d devised for her… it wouldn’t ever bring Nothel back.  Nor would it bring Osi back either.  But… it wasn’t altogether unsatisfying to think about.  Hopefully as he watched it unfold… he’d gain a little sense of satisfaction.

“Please!” Carol shrieked as she was dragged across the large tent’s floor towards the torturer’s table, bare breasts heaving in panic as she tried to kick off Ikt’s shadowy hands tugging at her shackled ankles.

Tears streamed down her face and the shadow fiend laughed from underneath the plain porcelain mask covering his features, the only white amidst the rest of pitch black that encompassed his body.  The shadow fiend gave Trey a brief glance and - seeing that Trey wasn’t there to negotiate or talk with his cousin - Ikt continued to drag her screaming and thrashing along the ground.

“Silvara…” Trey muttered softly, eyes narrowed and focused on Carol’s beaten, naked form as he gripped the elf princess by the back of her neck with one extended set of claws.  “I want you to watch this… Watch very carefully.  Know that you would be joining her if it weren’t for your bloodline… if not for the kingdom I inherit by marrying you… and if not for the pact between Alkir and Agnude.  Know that if something like this ever happens again where you’re involved…”

His shaky grip grew tighter around the beautiful, silver-haired elf’s spine… and his future wife jerked in pain.  “Know that the treatment Carol is getting here today will only be the beginning of what I do to you and your family if you disappoint me like this again.”

The elf princess frantically nodded, eyes wide and tearing up as his claws dug cuts into her flesh due to his anger.  “Yes my lord!  Never again!  I swear it on my life!”

He snarled, throwing the princess to the floor and slamming a foot into her bare stomach that expelled all the air from her lungs with a wheeze and a whimpering cry.

Carol continued to weep as she was slung up onto the table, quickly being strapped down by both Ikt and Atharost as the enchantments Ikt had placed with the help of Telipe began to light up around it.  “PLEASE!  TREY I’M SORRY!  I’M SO SORRY!  I DIDN’T KNOW SHE MEANT SO MUCH TO YOU!”

Trey snapped his fingers in Telipe’s direction.  “Are you sure those enchantments will keep her alive throughout this process?”

The blonde demihuman frowned from where she was kneeling, collared, on the floor behind him.  “Master… I believe they will keep her alive through what most normal humans could endure, but everything has a limit.  The runes will start to glow red hot when they’re about to break.”

He nodded, then turned his head to gesture to Chris.  “Bring me the hooks.”

The blonde, heavily armored paladin and servant to Maltetious, gave him a thumbs up.  “Comin your way man!”

The sound of heavy footsteps trudged off and away from the tent as he was joined by his friends Michael and Taen, who were deep in discussion about what’d happened over the past day and how close Trey’d come to nearly losing his shit on everyone when he’d seen Nothel’s body burnt like that.

Trey just tried to ignore them.  He didn’t want to hear it… but he knew that they weren’t being malicious.  If anything, they’d all come to give him their condolences upon his loss.

And truly… it was his loss.  Only his loss.  No one else in all of Nagochus… in all of existence really, would ever care even an inkling for the woman Nothel had been.  She’d been kind, smart, fun to be around, and… although he didn’t know why, she was one of the few people he’d ever clicked with so easily.  She had been given a shit hand, had everything torn from her, and finally - when she’d been given an avenue to a better life, Carol had stripped that away.

And how Carol would pay for that now.

Chris opened the tent flap again, being joined by Yastiel and Lueth as the two elf vetteresie warriors came to watch the proceedings with grim expressions as Trey gave them an appreciating nod.  The paladin handed the hooks Trey’d requested over to Ikt, along with the attached chains, and waved himself off as he exited the premise moments later.

Carol was now uncontrollably sobbing with her eyes squinted shut and her body heaving up and down on the stone platform specifically made for this purpose as the shackles of her wrists were chained to the top of the table and her shackled ankles to the bottom of the table.  It was a shoddy job because of the material they lacked and the time crunch Trey’d wanted it done in, but Carol could always be moved to another location whenever they got out of this fucking idiotic simulation the All Spirit had set up for them.

After Trey conquered that vampiric fortress… and by all the gods in existence, he would smash them into oblivion come morning.  Perhaps it was what the vampires wanted, getting him to act earlier while the majority of their defenses still held because he was hot tempered - but he didn’t care.  He’d give them what they asked for and more, even if he had to fucking do it himself.

Rivia, Ezdeath, Telipe, Napoleon, Atharost, Ikt, Yastiel, Lueth, Ashe, Izumi, Juila, Sithis and Piggy were all present in attendance.  Piggy was holding up Silvara’s head to force her to watch her friend’s torture, an evil grin on display as the elf weeped silently, and Sithis for the first time in a long time looked utterly furious.

Rusoe, the last remaining member of the three slaves he’d taken from the Okt Coven in Zekul, was not present.  Trey understood… she’d lost two of her very best friends today.  He’d left her to grieve in solitude within his tent and forbade people from visiting her… though he’d let her know that she could exact whatever vengeance she wanted to on his cousin as long as it wasn’t outright killing her - because he wanted to draw Carol’s punishment out for eternity to remind her just how badly she’d fucked up.

Over the next two hours, Ikt had set everything up splendidly with torturing devices laid out along a nearby tableand poles in the ground solidifying  the holds on the chains.  One of Ikt’s classes was ‘Torturer’ after all… and Trey could now see why.

Hooks had been run through Carol’s palms, the soles of her feet, and each of her breasts - pulling them out tight as she was continually tortured, beaten, raped, pelted with leftover food, and then healed before the vicious cycle started over again throughout the night.  With the public condemnation of the fallen mouthpiece by Agnude himself that’d only lasted about two minutes before the vision of the numen had vanished again, the once high and mighty battlemage now had even the lowest amongst her old vetteresie followers showering her with insults and taking part in her absolute humiliation.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” Carol’s screaming was almost never ending.  The sensation of pain was never quelled or gotten used to, due to Rivia’s renewed application of healing every half hour with the torturer’s table underneath Trey’s cousin making sure she didn’t die from blood loss.

Ikt cackled loudly as he pried up fingernails off her right hand with a blade, holding the hooked palm in place as her pierced body quivered and shook as one of the male vetteresie warriors was humping her between splayed legs held in place by taught chains.  Blood coated her blonde hair and cached it to her face, and between her screams she would hiccup-cry or hyperventilate with severe intensity.

“Burn.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Atharost placed a palm over her mouth and nose with a sadistic grin.  Flames then quickly coated her face and burned her tongue off, only letting her grunt out croaked moans before she was healed again and a fruit akin to a small watermelon was smashed over her head with a throw from another nearby soldier.

Trey continued to seeth, standing exactly where he’d been for the past few hours and not taking his eyes off his cousin as his desire to kill the stupid bitch battled with the knowledge that he knew Alkir wanted her alive for some kind of experiment… and that he also wanted to draw out the pain for as long as possible.

“PLEASE KILL MEEEE!!!” Carol screamed through muffled sobs as the vetteresie warrior humping her climaxed, getting a series of jeers and laughs as a new man from Agnude’s legion stepped up.  Carol cried out again as Ikt pried off yet another fingernail, then used an odd set of pliers to break that finger with an audible crunching sound.  “PLEAAAASSEEEEE!!!  KILLLL MEEEEEE!!!”

Trey merely shook his head, turning heel and closing his eyes.  Revenge could go both ways, and that was a lesson Carol would likely be finding out for many years to come. Motioning for Sithis to follow him out, he never looked back - and within the hour had disappeared from the encampment with his friend to think about what exactly he could have done differently in order to prevent this from happening.