Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire Chapter 632: Appeasing the restless (3)

"Where exactly are we going?" Philip asked as they hurried along.

"The dark blood trail," Athenodora said before Caius could answer.

"Yes," Caius said.

"Yeah, I can see that," Philip said as ten of the undead struck the dome, "I'm asking why we're following the trail. Where does it lead?"

Caius took a few seconds to contemplate answering and then said slowly.

"Surely twenty waves of undead with ten times increasing difficulty is too much to ask of someone. Even someone at the Eleventh Circle. There must be another way to pass the trial," Caius said.

"There must be?" Philip asked, suspicious but Caius shrugged.

"It's either that or you prepare to face that increasing horde. I doubt even your Emissary designation can hold out for that long," Caius said.

Philip frowned but said nothing more and just kept staring at Caius who kept his eyes on the trail and led the way, following it.

Unlike Philip, Athenodora already knew and made peace with the fact that Caius had inexplicable knowledge of the Blood and the challenges leading to it so she didn't spend her time staring at Caius and trying to 'figure him out' as Philip was doing. Because of this, her mind was free to be absorbed in the Blood they waded through and the peculiarity of the darker Blood trail.

Athenodora felt strange because the blood within the dimension felt both real and unreal to her. Her magical affinity with Blood Magic reacted to the Blood river but whenever she tried reaching out to it, her magic just went through as though the Blood wasn't there. Try as she might, she couldn't manipulate the Blood with her magic.

It was a strange thing for a Blood Mage who had spent centuries honing her skills to manipulate all Blood around her to now stand in a region abundant with Blood and have it all out of her reach, making her powerless.

Athenodora suddenly stopped walking. She cocked her head and could have sworn she heard a cry of distress. No, not just one… There were two, no five, no ten, no…

Uncountable…

The cries calling to her were so many that she found herself overwhelmed. She almost didn't notice that Caius had also stopped walking but she knew he hadn't stopped because of her.

Caius stopped walking because the darker trail ended at an oval pool of Dark blood. The river of Blood around the oval pool didn't impact it at all. Even when Caius's feet splashed through the Blood river, the drops never reached the oval. Like there was a protective field around it… or it didn't quite exist in the same plane as the river even though it appeared to.

The oval wasn't calm though. The surface was constantly disturbed by ripples that were most definitely not caused by the surroundings. Whatever was causing the ripples was coming from inside the oval pool and no one understood that better than Athenodora who now knelt before the oval with her brows furrowed.

Caius observed her but directed his words mostly at Philip who had been antsy for some understanding and was getting more and more antsy as more and more undead crowded his protective dome and slammed it.

"What we watched before the first wave is important," Caius said,

"We watched a battle where an uncountable number of lives were lost. Their Blood soaked the battlefield and as is often the case, in death, their souls were resentful. The trial created a shadow of that resentment in the form of the undead.

They're meant to seek the victory they couldn't get in life. And when they are defeated, they return in increasingly greater numbers until they are victorious.

However, the magic governing the trial, the same magic that keeps the dimension together, has limits, so after the twentieth wave, the number of undead summons will overwhelm the magic and cause it to collapse. That's why the trial only goes on to the twentieth wave. If you can make it to that point, you win."

"Okay," Philip said to prompt Caius to continue.

Caius let out a sigh.

"But getting through the waves is tedious. It would take having a massive army and a callous disregard for the lives of said army as well as being at the Eleventh Circle to reach the twentieth wave.

We don't have the time or the energy or resources for that…"

"We could have if you had told me this beforehand and I had contacted My Lord for reinforcements," Philip said.

Caius ignored him and continued like he hadn't been interrupted.

"… so we'll take a shortcut; Journey to the center of the trial's magic and appease the resentful and restless souls of the dead.

The shadow of their resentment and restlessness, anyway."

As he spoke, Caius directed his eyes at the rippling oval pond of dark Blood.

"And how do we do that?" Philip asked.

That was a good question.

In the original canon, Aurelius followed the trail and performed a cleansing with his Divine Light Magic. Caius believed he could perform something similar with Dark Magic. Thanks to his Divine seed, he had divine energy that could offer the extra push he needed.

He had spent the days since preparing for this. He had researched the Arcane Codex for every symbol needed and had designed the spell needed to evoke an appeasing ritual.

"We pray," Caius said to answer Philip's question and then looked at Athenodora,

"Hey, you should get back. Give me some space in case things go awry."

"No," Athenodora said, her voice steely.

"Why not?" Caius asked her.

"The blood… it— they call to me," Athenodora said, "Their cries are tugging on my Magic, I can't pull away."

"So what will you do?" Caius asked.

Rather than answer, Athenodora took a breath and stretched her arms over the rippling blood pool. Her hands trembled and the tattoos along her arms and all over her back began to glow a vibrant red. Drops of Blood began to seep out of Athenodora's fingertips but rather than drip down into the pool below, the drops linked together into chains that stretched down toward the rippling surface of the oval pool.

Once all ten Blood chains from each finger touched the surface and sank into the pool, Athenodora sucked in a breath and her eyes opened wide as she began to tremble all over.

"What's she doing?" Philip asked, suddenly panicky, "What's happening?"

"I don't know," Caius said honestly.

He hadn't seen this coming.

Phillip stretched his hand and was about to grab Athenodora's shoulder when Caius called out.

"No. Don't interrupt."

While he didn't know what was happening, he had a feeling that Philip interfering would only cause problems. As Philip froze in place, blinking at how Caius's words had actually convinced him to stop, Caius crossed his legs by Athenodora's side and closed his eyes in meditation.

He formed the seals he had crafted beforehand, channeling his Mana into them but also his Divine energy, conjuring a purple spell Circle teeming with the obsidian color associated with the Divinity of Darkness.

Caius's spell circle released pulses that seemed to directly counter the ripples above the oval pond of dark blood. Caius began to chant the spell words associated with the Ritual he had devised.

Before long, Caius felt his mind being drawn from his body. He didn't panic. He had expected he'd need to foster a direct connection. He let himself be drawn in, maintaining enough of a connection with his body to continue the chants.

"Fucking Hell—!" Philip cussed. Neither Athenodora nor Caius had explained to him what they were up to.

Philip actually had a lot more swear words prepared. Alas, he was interrupted from delivering the rest when a mighty explosion rocked the dome. The hundred undead of the Third wave had begun to detonate.

Unlike the last time, Philip had to take deliberate action. He stretched out both his arms out by his sides and released a pulse of Magical energy backed by his Emissary Designation and pushed the explosion away from the Dome.

When the explosion ended, more blood pillars began to rise, forming undead until they numbered a thousand that all came charging at the Dome.

Philip formed seals and erected a secondary dome to encircle the first, creating a double barrier for the increased number of enemies to get through before they got to him and Athenodora. He couldn't care less about the boy.

As he watched the thousand undead wail on the secondary dome, Philip felt annoyed that this was all he could do. Sure, the number was massive but it was a number he was confident he could defeat. But a battle wasn't wise when he had to conserve his energy and focus on defense.

Even more, what would be the point of fighting when the next will only be worse with the one after that building up the difficulty even more? If there was a chance this could get resolved quicker, he hoped for it.

He wasn't a person who thirsted for battle and wished to always be challenged. On the contrary, all that he did, every battle he fought, he fought only for his Lord. For whom he had reason to exist.