Strike the Blood - Volume 22 - Chapter 5.6

6

“Kojou…Kou…jo…u…”

Avrora was in a detached state as she kept deliriously repeating the same word.

Since she was unable to maintain the incomplete summons of her Beast Vassal any longer, it returned to mist and dissipated immediately.

The golden-haired girl’s body had countless cracks running all over it. Her skin had lost all color as if she were turning to stone, and droplets of fresh blood dripped from the deep cracks. Unable to withstand the backlash from summoning the Beast Vassal, she had begun falling apart.

“Hmm…a disposable artificial vampire in the end…so this is its limit…”

Shahryar Ren murmured in an indifferent voice.

He’d already lost all interest in the battlefield. Kojou Akatsuki had dissipated, and Avrora was beginning to crumble away. The Attack Mage girls and the dragon girl remained, but they were little threat to him. Ren didn’t even need to take them out himself.

“What of the…gate, to my homeland…?”

Upon landing, Kreyd the Flame Dragon inquired, remaining in his dragon form.

The demonic energy of the Fourth Primogenitor was necessary to open the gate to Else, homeland of the dragons. Kreyd seemed concerned that the dissipation of Avrora’s body would lose any means of doing so.

“There is no need for concern, Kreyd. Nod has over six thousand artificial vampires. We need only use one of them as a vessel for the Star Beast Vassals in Dodekatos’s place. Indeed, managing them should prove a far easier task.”

Smiling as he spoke those words, Ren then called over his surviving subordinates. There had been casualties from the combat with Kojou, but such sacrifices were well within expectations. He had higher priorities than healing and recovering the wounded.

“—Prepare a replacement doll at once. After that, put those Attack Mage girls in chains. I do not care if you break their limbs, but ensure you do not damage their heads. It has been quite some time since I’ve obtained such lively prey. I must take pains to enjoy them.”

Ren looked down at the Attack Mage girls as he issued those tyrannical commands to his subordinates.

To the Devas, who required acts of vampirism just to remain alive, humans were nothing but food to them. Among these, Attack Mages with strong spiritual energy were the highest class of prey and rare captures. Ren planned to savor every bit of the girls’ suffering, fear, and lamentations as he wrung every last drop of blood from them—even he could not fail to feel a stirring in his chest.

Yet those very Attack Mage girls were glaring at Ren and his people, yet to sheathe their weapons.

“You still intend to resist? Kojou Akatsuki, the one you relied upon, has dissipated without so much as a single cell remaining. Do you really think you have any chance of victory…?”

A scornful smile arose over Ren as he addressed the girls. A faint doubt of misgiving hovered in his eyes because he noticed the crumbling Avrora picking up a tiny, metallic object.

Amid the ashes of the dissipated Kojou Akatsuki, this had remained until the end.

It was a silver-colored ring.

The still-collapsing Avrora tightly squeezed that precious ring.

The tears of blood flowing from her dripped down onto the ring in her palm.

“Kojou…”

Avrora pressed the red-colored ring against her own chest.

Thump, thudded the large heartbeat they felt.

On the back of Leviathan, floating in Tokyo Bay, a silver-haired girl let out an agonized breath.

“Nnn…aaa…”

Kanon Kanase curled up and writhed as she pressed on her left hand.

Her cheeks were red from the blood rushing to them. Her blue eyes were moist as if they were running hot. With the faint moonlight shining on her, the sight somehow felt…obscene.

“Haaa…haaa… Miss Kanon…this feeling…”

Yume Eguchi, sitting alongside Kanon, breathed raggedly over and over. The young succubus girl had bewilderment, fear, and unconcealable euphoria on her face.

“It is all right…let go… It only hurts at the beginning.”

“But I…I’ve never, felt like this bef…aaa…noooo!…”

Yume’s entire body shuddered within Kanon’s gentle embrace.

The rings on their left hands gave a sense of drawing something out of them as their bewitching glows increased.

“Ahhh…!”

On the bridge of the armored airship Böðvildr, La Folia Rihavein’s back twitched and shuddered. Her white skin had turned the slightest shade of pink. Her blue eyes were watery.

“Princess? Is there something physically amiss…?”

Interceptor Knight Justina Kataya, attending at La Folia’s side, inquired with concern. La Folia squirmed, rubbing her thighs together, shaking her head with a strained smile.

“There is no need for concern. It would seem that my partner is doing something indecent again.”

“Partner…do you mean Sir Kojou Akatsuki? I shall urgently check upon Itogami Island.”

The dead-serious Justina spoke with a particularly earnest tone. La Folia, however, gently pressed the ring on her left hand to her chest and shook her head, an oddly sensual expression coming over her as she smiled.

“No. Such consideration is unneeded. This is a secret between just the two us—”

“Having this happen…is a bit…embarrassing, even for m…mnn!”

Half-buried by rubble, Yuuma Tokoyogi’s body twitched and squirmed. Her normal voice had a deep, boyish air to it, but at that moment, Yuuma sounded as lovely and sensual as a voice actress.

At a place a small distance removed, Sayaka and Shizuri writhed in similar manners.

“Nooo…more…no…I can’t take this…save me…Yukina…Yukina…!”

“Uuu…what is this…why is this happening to…n-no…aaaaa!”

Sayaka let out a sweet voice that made the usual impression she gave seem like a mirage. For her part, Shizuri was simply bewildered at experiencing such sensations for the first time.

Also, inside her own wrecked robot tank, Asagi was biting her thumb as she desperately endured the waves of pleasure crashing into her.

“…That idiot…what are you doing, at a time like this… It’s too mu…aaa…!”

Asagi was still halfway hurled out of the tank’s driver’s seat when her entire body suddenly stiffened. Then she limply collapsed facedown on the ground, letting out a frail, trembling breath.

“Lady Empress…what is doth happening…?”

Lydianne, the only one keeping her cool, asked over the radio. When that voice finally dragged Asagi back to lucidity, she shook her head with a guilty look.

The glow had already vanished from Asagi’s ring. The strange pulsing and the agony and pleasure of having her blood sucked into it were gone, too. In its place, she felt a deeper connection. She felt like he now existed deep inside her body. That sensation was giving Asagi strength, literally the strength to—

Asagi crawled out from under the robot tank, shoving the frame back with brute force. She didn’t feel any of the wounds she should have from the humanoid demon beast’s attack. There wasn’t even a scar.

“Keh-keh…you look like you’re having a pretty good time, Lil’ Miss.”

She heard a voice from the smartphone in her pocket. The oddly human-sounding synthesized voice felt downright nostalgic. The phone didn’t even wait for Asagi’s input before a badly sewn teddy bear avatar came on-screen on its own.

“Mogwai? You’ve finished your business?”

Asagi rudely greeted the partner AI she hadn’t seen in some time. Maybe it was a simulated personality reproduced from the memories of Cain the Sinful God, but to Asagi, it was just her mouthy partner.

Mogwai replied in a perfectly normal tone of voice, too.

“Yeah, I got a huge load off my shoulders, thanks to you.”

“Oh really. Then you’d better move your ass to make up for all the slacking. I don’t come cheap.”

“Please be gentle, Lil’ Miss.”

Mogwai laughed with a sardonic keh-keh as his real body—the main computer of Itogami Island—began a vast amount of magical calculations. Asagi called forth a crimson light from the magic symbols floating on-screen.

This was the light of the fearsome forbidden spell that could overwrite the physical laws of the world.

When the crimson bullet shot through the humanoid demon beast, it changed into pure white salt crystals and fell apart.

The Unknown’s magic resistance and regenerative abilities were meaningless in the face of that radiance. The humanoid demon beasts MAR had sent into combat were being erased as if they had never existed to begin with.

“O…oh my?”

Ladli Ren raised a bewildered voice when she saw which girl had destroyed the humanoid demon beast—a high school girl with a flamboyant hairstyle and a stylishly mis-worn uniform.

Surrounding her were countless floating bullets of light shaped like perfect squares. The humanoid demon beasts into which these bullets were shot turned into salt, dissipating one after the next.

“Asagi Aiba’s Cleansing?! Why did its strength spike all of a sudden?!”

Thrown for a loop, Ladli ordered her Spartoi to attack Asagi. Yet two girls with swords in hand stood before the horde of Spartoi once again.

“Lustrous Scale!”

“Hauras!”

Sayaka Kirasaka’s silver-colored long sword rent the resilient Spartoi exoskeletons like tissue paper. Also, Shizuri Kasugaya’s crimson long sword was pulverizing the Spartoi with brute force.

“Th…this can’t be happening…!”

Ladli took out her teleportation device from a side pocket, but the sorcerous device failed to activate. Yuuma Tokoyogi’s Guardian—her faceless blue knight construct—had prevented its activation using even more powerful spatial control magic.

“What is the meaning of this? You’d used up your strength mere moments ago, yes?”

Ladli looked over Asagi and the others out of sheer confusion.

Yuuma and Shizuri should have been depleted of strength, yet their demonic energy was as if they were well rested. Asagi and Sayaka’s heavy wounds had been completely healed. They’d been on death’s door from humanoid demon beast attacks, yet something had happened to the girls in less than a minute.

The girls had obtained a source of inexhaustible demonic energy and nigh-immortal regenerative ability. That simply wasn’t possi—

“The tables have turned, Ladli Ren.”

Asagi spoke while toying with the smartphone in her hand. Ladli’s face twitched with anger.

“…Do you truly think so, Priestess of Cain? You may have become a little perkier, but the tides are still against you.”

Ladli spoke with a theatrical tone as she turned her steel-colored stick toward the sky. Taking this as its cue, a giant sphere appeared over the sea near Itogami Island.

It was an enormous floating fortress, like a castle from the Middle Ages forced into a round shape.

“A Deva Necropolis…! You still had one of those blasted things?!”

Shizuri shouted as she looked up at the sky. She couldn’t hide her surprise at seeing another one emerge after they’d worked so hard to destroy the other Necropolises.

“This is my Castle Laren. Don’t you think this one is much cooler looking than my brother’s Castle Kalenaren, the one you destroyed? It’s a sphere…but it’s edgy.”

Satisfied with Shizuri’s pronounced reaction, Ladli delivered those words with her typical composure. Judging from her negotiating with Itogami Island not as one of the Devas, but as an employee of MAR to the bitter end, she really hadn’t wanted to send her own Necropolis into combat.

In other words, that was just how far into a corner they had driven her. From this point on, Ladli would probably attack without regard for the cost.

Though Asagi understood that full well, she smiled tightly out of pity for her opponent.

“I’m not sure about edgy, but you’re the one with the tides against you, Ladli Ren.”

“Eh?”

What do you mean? said Ladli’s narrowed eyes. The next moment, the Necropolis above the sea was engulfed in explosive flames.

The Necropolis was being attacked by a squadron of fighter jets diving from directly above. The models were fifth-generation stealth jets from the NAU. However, the flags painted on their gray fuselages were those of Japan. It was a fighter squadron from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

“Fighters…why are Japan’s Self-Defense Forces…”

Ladli murmured, eyes wide open in a daze.

Certainly, properly speaking, Itogami Island’s defense was under the government of Japan’s jurisdiction. Self-Defense Force craft attacking the Necropolis and MAR’s invasion forces made sense.

Yet the government of Japan had decided to destroy Itogami Island a scant twenty-four hours earlier. She didn’t understand why the situation had flipped on its head just then.

“Looks like we made it in time.”

Surrounded by wind like a tornado, Motoki Yaze leaped off a building and landed beside Asagi. Seemingly following suit behind him and his weary-looking face, large armored cars appeared one after the other. They were APCs of the Special Attack Mage Regiment of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces.

“Pretty good job you did there. Thank you for your hard work, President Yaze.”

Asagi waved casually as she spoke in a teasing tone of voice.

Taking his headphones off his ears, Yaze squinted at her with distinct annoyance.

Yaze wasn’t just the director of the Gigafloat Management Corporation—he was also the president of Japan’s Yaze Consortium. Though internal divisions had weakened its power in recent times, the Yaze family’s pull with the Japanese government remained powerful.

Using those financial connections to the fullest, Yaze had made them rescind their order to destroy Itogami Island.

To the Japanese government, this proposal was a godsend. With the Beast Vassal Warheads already neutralized, the government of Japan had no reason to view Itogami Island as a threat anymore.

Also, Itogami Island was only three hundred and thirty kilometers from Tokyo as the crow flies. Military transports could cross that in a half hour. Supersonic fighters could cross that distance and land in less than fifteen minutes.

The Island Guard hadn’t fought a retreating battle for no reason. They’d been buying time for the Self-Defense Forces to arrive.

“To think you would negotiate with the government of Japan… You’ve certainly pulled out quite a card…”

Ladli’s face turned bitter as she gazed sidelong at the Self-Defense Force members beginning to engage the humanoid demon beasts in combat. Fighters were engaging the Necropolis over the sea. She had Spartoi left, but she was still running short on firepower.

“The government of Japan’s not the only one I negotiated with, though.“

Yaze casually shook his head. That instant, Ladli’s expression grew graver still. She’d noticed a fresh source of demonic energy emerging above her head.

“—Dance, Gula!”

A thousand pitch-black daggers poured down like a storm, stabbing and piercing the remaining Spartoi. Even the high regenerative ability that Spartoi possessed couldn’t stop the countless blades from pinning them to the ground. After that, they could be picked apart without any reservation.

Losing her backup in the blink of an eye, Ladli stood alone.

“Velesh Aradahl…!”

Ladli was shaken when she realized the identity of the dagger Beast Vassal’s master. Ladli used an invisible slice to fend off Beast Vassal attacks as she turned her steel-colored stick toward Aradahl.

“Sorry, but I’m sealing that nasty petrification device—”

A fist covered in silver-colored metal pulverized Ladli’s sorcerous device from the side. She’d dropped her bulwark to activate the device. It had left her open for a single instant.

“Zana Lashka…!”

With Ladli having lost her sorcerous device, a gorgeous, red-haired beauty pummeled her at point-blank range.

Zana slipped through Ladli’s invisible slicing attacks with overwhelming speed. Sliced hair and blood droplets danced in the air. Ladli displayed unexpectedly high-caliber combat techniques, but Zana still had the edge in hand-to-hand combat. Taking kicks from Zana reminiscent of dance moves, Ladli was finally blown into the air.

“…How did you revive yourself, Zana Lashka? My sorcerous device should have sealed you in a barrier of equal strength to a Beast Vassal Warhead.”

Glaring resentfully at Zana, Ladli wiped the blood trickling from her lips.

“If a barrier’s made with the same technology as Beast Vassal Warheads, can’t you remove it with identical technology in turn? For instance, yes…if one used the Beast Vassal Warhead maintenance equipment stored in Nod.”

Zana spoke with a tone of feigned innocence. Impossible, spoke Ladli’s shake of her head.

Surely Kojou Akatsuki and his allies hadn’t had the luxury of time to haul Zana and Aradahl into Nod. Ren and his MAR troops certainly had no reason to help the pair.

Yet the fact remained that the two had been revived. There was one other person besides Kojou and company who could have visited Nod and brought back the mechanism with which to save Zana and Aradahl—an ambusher Ladli had never expected.

“You couldn’t mean, the one who revived you was—”

“Oh, right, a message for you from my husband.”

Zana interrupted Ladli’s quivering voice and forced a change of subject.

“Message…?”

Ladli tensely went on guard. Zana was a Blood Servant of the First Primogenitor—in other words, her husband was none other than the Lost Warlord himself.

“He said, ‘Since the Fourth Primogenitor brat destroyed a whole Necropolis, he’ll show me up if I don’t put in some elbow grease, too.’”

Zana giggled with a teasing smile. High overhead was the Necropolis floating above the sea.

The SDF fighters furiously engaged in combat with it suddenly fled from the combat area for some reason. The Necropolis was floating by its lonesome when a hazy, black shadow floated up behind it.

This shadow took the form of a beast—that of a wolf so enormous, it could swallow even the Necropolis in one gulp.

This was the starving wolf that ate all dead, the wolf that would never be satisfied, the one that had consumed the sun and the moon to taint the heavens with blood. This was Beast Vassal Number One of Ki Juranbarada, the First Primogenitor—Parhelion.

“It can’t be…! Aaa…?! Wait, stop! I surrender! I surrender, I say! Let’s all be happy. At least let me surre…no, stopppp!!”

Ladli Ren raised both hands up, lamenting with a desperate look.

Crunch—

The next moment, an enormous sound of something being chomped echoed through the night sky.