Strike the Blood - Volume 22 - Chapter 5.4

4

“Shahryar Ren…! Why, youuuuu!”

Holding Yukina’s bloody body, Kojou howled as demonic energy flooded out of him.

Shahryar Ren was visible at a spot only thirty meters away. Behind him, armed MAR infantry appeared one after another.

Ren and the others had apparently teleported to near the center of the colony, taking advantage of the low gravity to come up behind Kojou and the others without a sound. Thanks to that, even Yukina and the others hadn’t noticed the surprise attack beforehand.

“Your anger is a delight to behold, Kojou Akatsuki.”

Bathed in demonic energy waves sufficient to shake the entirety of Nod, Ren said this without moving an inch.

The MAR infantrymen turned their guns toward Kojou as one. There was no sign of any warning. They intended to slaughter Kojou and the others, no questions asked.

“But my anger at your stealing the Beast Vassal Warheads from me is nothing so petty!”

“C’mon over, Primus Adamas!”

There was a roar of gunfire before Ren’s words had even finished, but Kojou had already finished summoning his Beast Vassal. The pitch-black bloody mist transformed into an enormous bighorn sheep that became a wall of black diamond crystals reflecting the bullets back at them.

The gunfire bouncing off the black diamond crystals mowed down one MAR infantryman after the other. The pitch-black divine sheep had the trait of returning an opponent’s attacks back upon him with equal force.

With many of their men felled by their own gunfire, Ren’s unit suddenly became incapable of action, but Kojou’s Beast Vassal vanished as well. It wasn’t that Kojou had released his summons. The divine sheep had shattered into tiny particles and vanished, its strength seemingly exhausted.

“…Senpai…that’s…?”

Yukina inquired in an anguished voice, but Kojou said nothing in reply. It wasn’t because he didn’t know the cause of the Beast Vassal dissipating. It was precisely because he knew that silence was his only response.

“So it is true. I didn’t think the Beast Vassals of that failed prototype The Blood could possibly hold out for long.”

Shahryar Ren laughed profoundly, not even sparing a glance at his injured and fallen men.

Properly speaking, the black Beast Vassals of The Blood that Kojou had obtained should have vanished with The Blood back at Keystone Gate. Zana Lashka had pretty much forced them into a seal so that she could hand them over to Kojou, but this was little more than a temporary respite.

The black Beast Vassals had begun slowly vanishing since immediately after Kojou had obtained them. Their collapse had only hastened since Kojou’s arrival in Nod.

Nod was a place where only the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals could be properly summoned. The black Beast Vassals could be summoned only a single time. Once their one final summons was complete, each would completely vanish.

“How many Beast Vassals do you have left, Kojou Akatsuki?”

Ren laughed delightedly, taunting Kojou to back him farther into a corner.

“I only need one to blow you away, Shahryar Ren!”

Kojou glared at Ren head-on. His MAR infantrymen were already routed. Kreyd the Flame Dragon was circling overhead, observing the battle between Kojou and Ren.

He just had to defeat Ren. That fact made Kojou hesitate just a tiny bit.

Deva or not, if Kojou used a black Beast Vassal on an opponent in the flesh at that range, he was highly likely to kill Ren. That fact was making Kojou hold back.

Scorning Kojou’s indecision, Ren let a tiny laugh slip.

“What do you think is the reason an exceedingly proud dragon like Kreyd obeys me?”

“What?”

“It is nothing dramatic. Put simply, I am stronger than he is.”

“…!!”

The impact to the side of his head made Kojou’s vision wobble. He fell to the ground, holding Yukina’s body in his arms. Shahryar Ren’s invisible blow had shaken Kojou’s brain.

Even if vampires had nigh-immortal levels of regenerative ability, putting the body off-kilter made that virtually useless. Kojou realized that Deva divine power held far more danger than pure destructiveness.

“Besides, aren’t you getting something quite wrong? I am not the one you should be fighting.”

Looking down at the staggering Kojou, Ren took out a sorcerous device shaped like a dagger. It was the sorcerous device for controlling the artificial vampires known as Kaleid Bloods—in other words, Avrora.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Behind Kojou, Avrora let out a high-pitched scream.

Turning back, Kojou set eyes upon Avrora’s whole body, releasing a torrent of thick demonic energy swirling around her. Under the sorcerous device’s control, Avrora was trying to summon the Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor.

“Avaaa!”

“Stop, Avrora Florestina…!”

Glenda and Kiriha tried to stop Avrora, but the pair, impeded by the demonic energy Avrora was giving off, couldn’t even get close to her.

Avrora summoned only a single Beast Vassal.

This, however, was no Beast Vassal known to Kojou. The mirage-like creature floating above Avrora’s head was an enormous, ghoulish chimera fusing all twelve of the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals together.

It had the body of a minotaur, a twin-headed dragon for a tail, the wings of a monstrous bird and the arms of an undine, the horns of a bicorn and the claws of a lion—it was a mixture of all, a partway fusion of each, taking the form of an enormous monster. This was the result of Avrora’s inability to properly control the Beast Vassals, instead taking only part of each, so that they materialized as one incomplete monstrosity.

“Oh…shit…!”

Kojou summoned all of his remaining black Beast Vassals.

The Beast Vassals summoned by Avrora didn’t even have the intellect of beasts remaining. They were simply an enormous mass of demonic energy that would destroy everything in sight in accordance with its fighting instincts.

If Kojou didn’t neutralize the Beast Vassals somehow, it wouldn’t end with the slaughter of Kojou and company alone. In the end, it would destroy Nod itself. Of course, it was highly probable the host, Avrora, would break completely before it came to that.

Even if this was an incompletely summoned monstrosity, it was composed of Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor nonetheless. Mizen’s demonic energy was overwhelming. In contrast, Kojou’s black Beast Vassals didn’t have enough power left to oppose it.

“This is bad… The Beast Vassals, they’re…!”

Sounds like breaking glass echoed as the black Beast Vassals dissipated one after the other. In contrast, Avrora’s Beast Vassal was unscathed. If anything, they’d increased in demonic energy, all the better to squash Kojou and the others flat.

The final black Beast Vassal vanished before Kojou’s eyes. Avrora’s Beast Vassal howled, moving to slice Kojou asunder with a lightning-imbued claw.

The swing of one slender blade stopped this claw cold. Gripping her silver-colored spear, Yukina blocked the Beast Vassal’s blow head-on.

“Himeragi…?! Quit it! If you move in that body, the bleeding’ll—!”

Kojou screamed with a plaintive voice. As Yukina gripped her spear, her body was unceasingly bleeding fresh blood. Even so, a fleeting smile came over Yukina as she called out to Kojou.

“Senpai…please…get to Miss Avrora while you still can…!”

“U…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…………!!”

Kojou let out an incoherent yell as he broke into a sprint.

Now that Avrora was in a berserk state, there was only one way left to stop her: to drink Avrora’s blood and overwrite her Beast Vassal control rights.

Kojou had lost his black Beast Vassals, but his vampire factors still remained. The possibility of taking control of her was better than zero.

“Avrora!”

“Ko…jou…!”

As Kojou desperately raced over, Avrora feebly stretched out her arms. She, too, wished for Kojou to drink her blood—to be overwritten by him.

Fortunately, the scent of Yukina’s fresh blood splattered on him had already kicked Kojou’s vampiric urges into high gear.

Kojou roughly grabbed Avrora’s outstretched fingers. Picking up her slender body, he sank his fangs into her defenseless neck.

The instant he sipped droplets of fresh blood, Kojou heard a sound behind him.

It was a ridiculously soft sound, like that of a razor-sharp blade thrusting into soft bread.

It was the sound of a fresh purging stake unleashed by Shahryar Ren’s bow gun impaling him.

“That’s what I thought you’d do, Kojou Akatsuki.”

Ren spat the words out in an indifferent tone. He’d sought the moment Kojou tried to stop Avrora’s rampage from the very beginning.

“Senpai…!”

Seeing Kojou’s heart impaled from behind, Yukina let out a soft scream.

“Hi…uuu…aaaaaaaaaaa……Kojou! Kojou!”

Avrora’s face twisted in despair. Fine cracks ran over Kojou’s entire body, beginning to crumble away like sand. Avrora desperately tried to hold on to Kojou but could not stop him from falling apart.

“Begone, sham Fourth Primogenitor. Not even a single piece of ash will remain of you.”

Shahryar Ren spoke coldly, tossing away his bow gun now that its job was done. His voice never reached Kojou. Kojou’s flesh had already lost its human form, changing to a pile of ash. Finally, even the ash of him left behind melted away, fading into the darkness of Nod.

“Sen…pai…no…”

Yukina sat down on the spot, depleted of strength.

There were no longer even tears in her lifeless eyes.