Strike the Blood - Volume 21 - Chapter 4.3

3

A huge map was projected in the ruler’s chamber on the topmost floor of the Goplam. It was a chart of the entire surface world.

Seven-tenths was ocean, and three-tenths was land. Once upon a time, nearly all that land had been under Deva rule.

Currently, however, the areas under their control had been reduced by some six-tenths of that as a consequence of both demon and human rebellions.

The long-running conflict had resulted in the loss of numerous cities and lives of the Devas dwelling therein. At this stage, the decline of the Devas was clear for anyone to see. Reports of their defeat in battle had grown quite commonplace.

Nevertheless, the report that day delivered a heavy jolt stretching from the surface all the way to the isolated realm of Nod.

“The Ubide territory was destroyed?”

Ki Juranbarada, lying in an ill-mannered fashion on a long chair, sat up in surprise. He was a tall military man with a dauntless face.

Ubide was a principality located in the center of the old continent. It prospered as a critical pathway between east and west and possessed a powerful military force. He’d heard that the rebel army’s invasion had grown fierce, but he’d been certain the territory would not have gone down with ease.

“What happened in just three days? The rebel army on the old continent doesn’t have that kind of firepower, right?”

Ki turned toward the map with a sober look in his eyes.

The dots of light on the chart represented Deva cities, and the arrow markers represented rebel army units. There were no lights in the Ubide region. Both the cities and the military units had vanished without a trace.

“Duke Mehelgal used Beast Vassals.”

Cain spoke quietly while glancing down at his carnelian stone tablet. He was usually so laid-back that his now-solemn tone made him seem like an entirely different person.

“Beast Vassals, you say?”

Ki’s temple twitched.

Beast Vassals were creatures summoned from another world, masses of demonic energy so dense that they could physically manifest.

On top of possessing enormous power, they were nigh immune to physical attacks. Birthed from Deva technology, these creatures were the ultimate weapons of destruction.

The Devas had strictly prohibited the summoning of Beast Vassals. This was because they were simply too powerful to be employed as tools of warfare.

A single summoned Beast Vassal could burn a city or a forest to cinders, alter the terrain, and trample all life-forms in the vicinity, both friend and foe alike. Even the Devas, with their divine energy, found controlling them no easy task. When Beast Vassals went berserk, no one could stop them. They were truly calamities.

Duke Mehelgal, ruler of Ubide, had resorted to summoning Beast Vassals and lost everything as a result: friend, foe, and even the land he ruled.

“They probably panicked when the Nalakuvera invasion threatened their state capital. The rebel army and the Grand Alliance nations seem to have begun summoning Beast Vassals of their own.”

“Tit for tat, huh? They just might go that far.”

Ki casually glanced up at the ceiling. Beginning with the sky-soaring tanks known as Nalakuvera, many of the weapon systems developed by the Devas had already fallen into rebel hands. This was only natural, for it was the demons and humans the Devas had regarded as lesser races who’d actually built the machines. Now that a Beast Vassal had been unleashed in the Ubide territory, the rebel army would relentlessly seek to procure them as well.

To oppose this, the Devas would be compelled to use Beast Vassals once more. There was no way to stop the gears that had been set in motion. The flames of war were certain to spread.

“I imagine so. According to Giada and the others, the dragons seem to be rather on edge.”

“That figures.”

Ki sighed with annoyance at Cain’s statement.

The increasing ferocity of the war with the rebel army had resulted in a pronounced increase of the influx of Deva refugees to the artificial isle of Senra. With humans slipping away from Deva rule one after another, it was growing increasingly difficult to secure blood plasma. If this kept up, the starving Devas would inevitably be forced to invade the Eastern Lands. The dragons who guarded the region were wary of this possibility.

“Hey, Cain…at this rate, what’s gonna happen to the Devas?”

The head of Senra’s garrison forces asked this of its acting ruler.

Cain sighed at length as he gazed at the place on the map where the lights had vanished—the ruined territory of Ubide.

“The true terror of Beast Vassals, even more horrifying than their destructive power, is their contamination of memories. When Beast Vassals escape control, they steal ‘information’ without limit from sentient life-forms around them to maintain their physical forms.”

“Information…memories, huh?”

“By the time they run out of feed to consume, the Devas will probably be no more. At the very least, they will no longer hold the power to maintain their civilization.”

“I see. That’s not limited to us, though, is it?”

Ki snorted in displeasure.

A summoned Beast Vassal didn’t vanish on its own after destroying its initial target. They kept on stealing the memories of the living in the area to maintain their materialized states.

People whose memories had completely vanished lost even their zeal to live and wasted away until they finally perished. This phenomenon was indiscriminate, affecting Deva, demon, and human alike. Beast Vassals were egalitarian destroyers.

“With us, we’re reaping what we sowed, but when we think of the other races getting nailed, we can’t just sit by and let it happen, can we? So what do we do about it?”

Ki looked at Cain, who was atypically serious.

It wasn’t his usual playful expression. Born into royalty, Cain’s repeated disregard of decorum and other aberrant actions had finally ended in exile to Nod. It was he, the Devas’ foremost eccentric, in whom Ki placed his trust. The same no doubt went for Aswad and Giada.

Put another way, only these four could change the Devas’ fate.

“Once a Beast Vassal is summoned, it is very difficult to annihilate via outside interference. Even if you slam one into another, it will result only in the victor growing more powerful from absorbing the loser’s energy.”

Ki spoke in his normal tone of voice as if it was someone else’s problem.

“There has to be a way. Haven’t you already thought of one?”

Ki tenaciously countered. “Hmm,” went Cain, sinking into a bit of thought.

“Logically speaking, the simplest method is mutual annihilation through slamming demonic energy with opposing, higher-dimensional energy. That is why I went and completed the Divine Oscillation Wave activation ritual.”

“That stake? Or is it a spear? Well, it doesn’t really matter.”

Ki recalled the silver-colored sorcerous device Cain had shown him on a previous occasion.

The Divine Oscillation Wave activation ritual—a sorcerous device that could rend any barrier and nullify demonic energy certainly would be effective against a Beast Vassal.

“Devas and demons created by the Devas cannot use it, however. The only ones who can operate it are the human mutants known as saints.”

“…So the people who are already trying to kill us anyway.”

Cain rested his cheek against a palm in annoyance.

The saints, of human flesh yet able to wield spiritual energy, were the Devas’ mortal enemies.

Even if it was for neutralizing the Beast Vassals, handing them Cain’s sorcerous devices would end up tightening the noose around the Devas’ necks.

Regardless, he’d probably hand them the spear as a last resort. You can’t use a spine in place of a stomach. The Beast Vassals devouring the surface world was simply that grave a threat.

“Are there any other options? Do we have to rely on humans?”

Ki seemed to get his thoughts together as he inquired.

Cain mulled things over a bit before finally murmuring as if he’d reached some kind of decision.

“If they cannot be destroyed, our only choice is to seal them.”

“Seal? But aren’t these monsters that can burn away whole cities in an instant?”

“We don’t have to physically confine them. Even if they can manifest, they are masses of demonic energy by nature. We need only force them to possess someone.”

“Taking a memory-eating monster into your own body? Just the thought gives me chills.”

Ki made an exaggerated shudder of his shoulders. If Beast Vassals were masses of demonic energy, it was far from impossible for them to possess a living creature. Ki didn’t think there was a living creature capable of enduring the strain, though. Even the bodies of the Devas couldn’t handle the backlash from a Beast Vassal’s demonic energy.

Cain, however, was surely thinking the following: If that being didn’t exist, then he would make one.

He also had the Holy Flash at his disposal, a forbidden spell able to rewrite the laws of the world.

“To a Beast Vassal, sentient life-forms who engage in social activities exist so they can feast on their information, so to speak. That means if they’re compatible with a host, the beasts should politely obey. If one person isn’t enough, we just need to pair them with more people to broaden the information.”

Underpinning Ki’s hypothesis, Cain continued to ramble. He’d thought of a way to save the surface world from the menace of summoned Beast Vassals long ago.

“Pairing?”

The unfamiliar term threw Ki off.

“I mean marriage, albeit in a magical sense. Perhaps we might call them Blood Servants?”

“That sounds like a royal pain in the ass.”

“Ahhh, of course I wouldn’t mind if it is polygamy or with the same sex.”

“That’s not the part that bugs me.”

“Good grief,” went Ki, a strained grin coming to his face as he prompted back.

“So you stick a Beast Vassal into someone. Then what?”

“You don’t need to do anything. If it’s a weak Beast Vassal, it will vanish when the host dies.”

Cain spoke in a tone like it was no big deal.

“And the strong ones?”

The look in Ki’s eyes grew sharper. Cain met his disarming gaze without any change in his expression.

“Their power will wane with time. If part of a Beast Vassal is allotted to children and grandchildren, it should be possible to weaken them with successive generations.”

“I get the logic, but this is some real long-term thinking. It’s not like you at all.”

Ki muttered his true feelings, which brought a lonely smile to Cain’s lips.

“If there is one problem, it’s that the Beast Vassals won’t let their hosts die under any circumstances. That will only change once the Beast Vassals have completely lost their power.”

“Even if you cut off their heads?”

Ki’s voice was tinged with surprise as he double-checked.

“Yes. Even if the hosts’ hearts are pierced, or they’re burned to the core, or they’re dashed into tiny pieces, the Beast Vassals will refuse to let them expire. Aging is out, too. Relying on memories from the time of possession, the host will be revived in their original state over and over until the Beast Vassals are depleted of demonic energy.”

“Then you’d be completely immortal?”

“I suppose so, particularly for the primogenitors first possessed by the Beast Vassals.”

Cain’s lips twisted in anguish.

From that expression, Ki understood everything. Cain had wanted to make himself the vessel for the Beast Vassals, but that couldn’t happen. After all, he was the one and only wielder of the Holy Flash. He couldn’t overwrite his own existence with a spell he himself unleashed. That’s why he wanted Ki to be a primogenitor in his stead. The same probably went for Aswad and Giada.

Ki alone wasn’t enough to purify the Beast Vassals soon to be used in every corner of the world. It would take three primogenitors at minimum.

Until freed of the curse of the Beast Vassals, they would live as monsters for an eternity. Ki and company were probably the only people crazy enough to accept turning into that.

“Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, but that kind of life’s definitely gonna be boring.”

“I think you’ll have quite a bit of fun with it, though, don’t you?”

“You’re the last guy I wanna hear that from. Hey you…”

Ki slowly shifted his gaze to the third individual in the room.

Standing there was a young boy of around twelve or thirteen years old. He was not a Deva. He was human. Ki didn’t know what had possessed Cain to take the boy on the verge of death into his care, but he refused to drink his blood and was raising him with great diligence. Cain had not only taught him to read but was also having him help out with ruler work these days. The boy came off as cheeky in a good way, something Ki was rather fond of.

“You think so, too, don’t you, Mizen—Number Zero of the Kaleid Bloods?”

When Ki inquired, the boy looked a little conflicted before making a reserved nod.