Before I could go off slaying monsters, there was a more important issue to resolve: the issue of what to do with the chaos I'd ripped out of Gerion.
I stood still for a second and tried to sense it, which was not exactly a problem considering how eager it felt while flowing through me. The chaos magic writhed within my guts like a living thing, foreign and volatile, and completely unlike the ordered blood that flowed sluggishly through my veins. Dracula generally drew strength and magic from his blood, and considering the way chaos was rolling in my guts, I understood why he did better.
There was a taste to it, much like the way vampires sampled blood. I could savour the distinct taste of the magic I had drawn. It tasted of madness and fire, of a civilization's death scream crystallized into power.
What I had done was impulsive, risky, and even foolish by some measures. Yet I had done it anyway. I was growing used to things going my way, and I was certain it was going to bite me in the ass in the future. However, I had a feeling I was not going to suddenly quell my newfound arrogance, for arrogance was only a sin if one did not have the strength to back it up.
The chittering above grew louder, more frantic. They were close now, whatever they were.
I turned slightly, and my gaze swept across my gathered party before shifting to the skeletal remains in the corner, the Valyrian pair who had died with the mother clutching her child in this underground sanctuary. I did not know them, yet I knew that they had deserved better than to become forgotten bones in a tomb. They deserved better than to have their tomb desecrated by whatever was coming for us.
"I will not allow them to violate this vault," I finally said, my voice carrying an edge of command that made even Marwyn straighten. I looked again at the bones. "This tomb." I corrected myself. "We shall face them upstairs."
My part said, and with my companions' nods of agreement behind me, I moved toward the vault entrance with purposeful strides, my black coat swirling behind me while chaos magic pulsed beneath my skin. Once again, I was hit with the feeling of sentience. It was eager, hungry, and wanted to be used. The few memories I had of Dracula dabbling with chaos had it trying to heavily influence his thoughts, whispering suggestions of violence and destruction.
I could barely feel that same urge. It was there; however, it was so minuscule compared to what Dracula had faced. Did that have anything to do with the quantity of the magic, or was it a more metaphysical change, owing to the different universes? I remembered the games. While in the show, chaos was never spoken about, the little I knew about the games explained that chaos was not just the plane of magic; it was also an entity.
While I climbed the stairs, with my brain running multiple thought processes at once, Isaac fell into step behind me without hesitation, Longclaw already half-drawn from its sheath. Gerion followed more slowly, Brightroar gripped in both hands. Marwyn brought up the rear, his medical supplies hastily secured.
The stone stairs were narrow, forcing us into single file, with me at the lead. I ascended with unhurried grace, my enhanced senses already painting a picture of what awaited above. Two dozen sources of movement, spread throughout the manse's ground floor. Heartbeats, if they could be called that, irregular and wrong. The reek of corrupted flesh, of unwashed and twisted bodies that should have died but refused to.
The wretches.
I emerged into the manse's entrance hall, and there they were.
They had been human once. That much was evident in their basic shape: two arms, two legs, a head. But the Doom had remade them into something else entirely. Their skin was mottled gray and black, cracked like old leather, with patches where it had peeled away to reveal muscle and bone beneath. Some had extra limbs sprouting from their torsos, vestigial and useless. Others had faces split by too many mouths, or eyes that glowed with the same fever-madness that had consumed Gerion. A final one hung from the roof, hidden to sight, but its twisted and malformed heartbeat gave it away.
Some of them still had the remnants of clothing, scraps of what might have been fine Valyrian silk. Some still had on aged and exotic armours: a cracked breastplate with an engraved image of a harpy on the chest. Another wore a helmet that had now rotted and fused to its flesh. The helmet looked strange. More than a few had weapons clasped in their hands, twisted and rusted things, yes, but weapons all the same.
The moment I appeared, they turned as one. Their chittering stopped, replaced by a collective hiss that increased the temperature of the room by degrees. We stared at each other for a second, a second where I felt my face twist with imperial disgust at the sight of the beings before me.
"Disgusting." The word slipped from my lips.
They howled as one and attacked immediately. If I didn't recognize their animal like behaviour, I would have mistaken them for sentient beings that were insulted.
The first three came at me in an uncoordinated rush. The lead one had a rusted sword in hand while the other two had claws extended, mouths gaping to reveal blackened teeth and putrid gums. They closed the distance, bounding on all fours and leaping at me. Faster than normal humans.
Still, they were nowhere near fast enough.
I moved through them like a scythe through wheat. My hand lashed out faster than the wretch could see and caught the first by the throat, and I felt the chaos magic within me surge, recognizing its kin in the wretch's corrupted flesh. For a moment, the two magics resonated, and I understood. These creatures were sustained by the same force that had nearly consumed Gerion, the same force now roiling in my own blood.
I could rip it out as well; I could take it like I took what had been inside Gerion. I deserved it. No one else was worthy of such unadulterated power. Power enough to unmake man into GOD.
I crushed the thought just as I crushed the wretch's windpipe before flinging it aside, already moving to the next.
The second wretch swung at me with claws that could have disemboweled a man. I caught its wrist, twisted, and heard the satisfying crack of breaking bone. Its howl of pain was silenced as my second hand lashed out at its throat, decapitating the creature.
I shifted to the side an instant later, dodging as the last one tried to leap at me with its fanged maw open. I swung the body of the second and, like a hammer, used it to whip the wretch into the floor, where a stomp of my foot cratered its head. I glanced at the mess I had made of the wretch beneath my foot, and my brow rose the moment I glimpsed something move in the corpse.
Before I could focus on it, movement behind me drew my attention as Isaac lunged out and engaged two more that had followed after the trio, Longclaw singing as it cut through corrupted flesh like a hot knife through butter. I ignored my forgemaster and instead turned to the more curious person, Gerion.
The Lannister surprised me. The knight surged forward with a shout of repressed anger, and, wielding Brightroar in both hands, he swung down. The first blow cleaved through the wretch, sending its parted halves to the side. However, his swing was wide, and one of the wretches managed to dive for him, its clawed arm tearing a new divot into the knight's battered plate. The third moved to widen that tear when an arrow found its way into its neck.
Gerion spun with a roar and swung sideways, cleaving the second wretch at the waist. The strength he swung with, as well as the blade in his hands, bisected the creature at the waist while I watched with curious eyes. The way he fought was interesting. I already knew how deadly Valyrian steel was, yet seeing it wielded with supernatural strength, especially a greatsword variant, changed things.
I wanted one.
A flick of my eyes and I caught Marwyn where he positioned himself at the vault entrance, his visor down, hands gripping a crossbow he had produced from his coat.
More wretches poured in from adjoining rooms, drawn by the sounds of combat. I counted quickly, and they were twenty-three total, minus the one that remained hanging on the roof. It was just as my senses had indicated. They circled us like a pack of rabid dogs, looking for openings.
I felt the chaos magic surge again at their presence. It demanded I pull more from the air. It ordered and dictated to be used. It wanted destruction, it wanted to be released in a wave of fire and madness. For a moment, I considered it. How easy it would be to let it loose, to burn these wretches to ash and cinders. I was already forming the spell before I made a conscious effort to stop it halfway.
Nobody, and nothing, demanded Vlad Tepes Dracula to do anything.
Like a hound that had been scolded, the chaos magic settled once more, and those whispers disappeared.
I ignored the chaos and focused on the magic in my blood, reached out, and tried to shift a part of my consciousness into one of the wretches as I would my crows or bats. Yet there was nothing to skin-change into. The minds of the wretches were a mess, and where that would have been a good thing in any other scenario, here it was an annoyance.
The wretch's mind, what remained of it, was a fractured mess of hunger and pain. Their brains were just as twisted by chaos as their bodies, and the thickness of the corruption in their veins had begun to birth something I could feel squirming in the creature's mind for the second I was connected, disrupting my connection.
Very well. The direct approach it was.
I gave another glance at my companions before I spoke. "Be careful. Don't allow them to breach your mask, and avoid their blood as well." My comment was meant for Isaac, and he nodded at once in acknowledgment. So I cracked my neck to the side before crouching. A second later I exploded forward, wading my way into them, my movements a blur of calculated violence. These wretches were stronger than normal humans, yes. Faster, more durable. But they fought with no skill, no tactics beyond overwhelming their prey with numbers and ferocity.
Against trained opponents with superior weapons, they didn't stand a chance.
I caught one by the skull and slammed it into the stone wall hard enough to shatter bone. Another I impaled on my hand, lifting it off the ground before hurling it into three of its companions. The chaos magic sang in my veins, sang to be used, to burn, obliterate, and destroy my foes in a grand working of magic. I ignored it like i have multiple times before and instead focused on the blood in my veins, strengthening me as I massacred the creatures.
Isaac and Gerion were holding their own, yet I could see the knight was flagging. Sweat poured down his face, and his movements were becoming sluggish, but he kept fighting. He fought almost like they did, all anger and fury, as if the creatures had harmed him personally, which, in hindsight, they might have.
One of the creatures broke away from the main group, making for the stairs to the upper floor. A crossbow bolt sprouted from the side of its neck, dropping it. Then another followed, moving with startling speed this time, trying to escape through a broken window. Isaac sped after it, bouncing off a broken table. He caught the wretch with a blow that cleaved off a hand before he buried the length of the blade into its back, using the corpse to break his fall.
They were fleeing.
Yet they should not have bothered, for Gerion, Isaac, and Marwyn slaughtered them before they could step a foot out of the manse. I stayed in place and watched them, my hands at my sides as my fingers dripped with their blackened blood staining the ground. The last wretch was killed when Gerion managed to drive Brightroar through the skull of his enemy, then collapsed against the wall, gasping.
Silence fell over the manse, broken only by our breathing.
"What strange beasts. These are no night creatures," Isaac noted as he poked at one with his sword before sheathing the blade and crouching beside the body, his forgemaster dagger in hand as he inspected the wretch with curiosity. Marwyn walked up to the forgemaster, and together they began a quick dissection of the body while they muttered to each other.
"We got them all," Gerion gasped as he rested against the wall.
"Not all of them," I corrected. The battered knight blinked red-rimmed eyes in confusion before I gave a soft grin and pointed upwards to where the last creature had been perched observing the fight. Gerion followed my finger and locked eyes with the wretch, earning a hiss from it as wings erupted from its back and, with a single flap, it soared through the broken roof.
"It's getting away," Gerion panted, his face pale. His knuckles were white around Brightroar's grip. "We have to stop it. It'll report to him. To the one with the firewyrm. He'll know we're here, he'll—"
"Good," I said simply.
The fiasco had drawn even Isaac and Marwyn's attention, as the latter already had his crossbow to his shoulder, the creature in sight, yet instead of shooting, he froze at my words.
Three pairs of eyes turned to me. Gerion's expression was one of pure horror.
"Good?" he repeated. "You don't understand. That thing, that rider, he'll come for us. He'll—"
"He'll come," I agreed, examining the black blood on my hands with interest. My eyes narrowed, and I could see it better, see what I had spotted when I stared at the trio I killed first. Worms, black, small, sinuous things that swam in the wretches' blood. A more physical representation of the chaos. However, it was already beginning to evaporate, breaking down into the same dark smoke I'd drawn from Gerion. It seemed like without a host, they simply shifted back into their pure state. "But we will not simply wait for him."
I looked at Gerion, seeing the fear warring with confusion in his eyes. "You're stabilized now, Ser Gerion. The corruption is manageable as long as you maintain contact with Brightroar and receive regular doses of sweetsleep. Which means you can walk, you can fight, and you can guide us."
Understanding began to dawn on Marwyn's face. "You want to track it."
"More than that," I said, a smile crossing my lips. "I want to meet this mysterious rider. If Gerion's account is accurate, this being possesses intelligence. He commands the wretches, controls a firewyrm, and speaks High Valyrian. That suggests a mind capable of reason."
"Or madness," Isaac observed quietly.
"Perhaps both," I conceded with a soft smile that made Isaac stand up straighter at the attention. "But if he's sane enough to command, he's sane enough to communicate. And I find myself very interested in what he might have to say."
"Someone who was alive since the fall of Valyria," Marwyn whispered, already ecstatic and interested in the idea.
I turned to face them fully, letting my crimson eyes reflect the dim light. "It's settled. We're not returning to the castle. Not yet. We're going to follow the wretch, see where it leads us. And if we're fortunate, we'll have a simple conversation with the survivor of the Doom."
"And if we're not fortunate?" Gerion asked, though I suspected he already knew the answer.
"Then we'll deal with whatever comes," I said. "As we have dealt with everything else."
Gerion looked like he wanted to protest, to argue, but exhaustion and the lingering effects of the sweetsleep kept him silent. Isaac simply nodded, accepting the change in plans without question.
"We should move quickly," I continued, already heading for the door the wretches had fled through. "Before the trail grows cold."
I paused at the entrance, cocking my head to listen. My enhanced hearing picked up the sound of the wretch scampering on the ground, its footfalls growing fainter as they raced through the ruined streets. It seemed like it was not capable of flight for long.
Yet as I stepped forward to follow it, my ears picked up another low, droning background sound. A sound I had heard multiple times since we landed here.
It was distant, yet rhythmic and deliberate in the way it rang out.
I looked upward and caught a vague silhouette. A silhouette of wings. Massive sky, beating somewhere in the smoke-choked sky above Valyria.
A/N: I'm enjoying this Valyrian Freehold arc more than i expected.