Chapter 108:
Chapter 108:
“Plop”
Like a fish hawk smoothly diving into water, the young lady opened her eyes in the Sacred Blood Pool in the next instant. Although she was the daughter of the Patriarch, this was actually her first time being so close to the family’s sacred pool.
Although the blood pool appeared to be boiling on the surface, it remained ice-cold inside.
The viscous liquid was like a true fusion of blood, yet far murkier than the sacred pool water Femis had seen a few times before. It also gave off an indescribably cold and twisted feeling.
That the sacred pool had been polluted was within Femis and Tris’s expectations, but it was not until she actually entered the sacred pool that she realized what her father had poured into the originally supremely sacred blood pool in his madness bestowed by the sub-dimension.
Vampire blood essence!
To pollute the ancient sacred blood pool imbued with supreme spiritual power to this extent, at least thousands of elite clan members polluted by the sub-dimension must have had their fresh blood poured into this pool.
“Ugh”
After realizing this, the young lady vomited once in the blood pool.
She tightly covered her mouth, never before feeling as revolted by the crimson color before her eyes as she did now. She felt she would never again enjoy the pleasure that came from drinking blood. How tragic, she had lost one of the means of indulging herself for the rest of her life.But time was pressing, and this was not the moment to consider such things.
Even in the depths of the blood pool, she could hear the screams coming from outside, those of the witch hunters having their fresh blood extracted by her monstrous father.
There was no time to waste!
Femis’s left hand flipped lightly, and an object jumped into her hand, flickering with a crimson glow.
It was none other than the Lord’s Token of Desire Fragment that the old knight Finoch had taken away before.
Only this object, representing the position of Blood Vulture Patriarch and inherited from the mysterious era before records like the Sacred Blood Pool, had enough power to sever Salrokdar’s connection with the clan’s blood pool.
The specific method was what Tris had taught her.
Although Femis did not know why Tris, the family’s disgrace, would know this knowledge that was undoubtedly “forbidden” in any clan, she could not hesitate any longer under the current circumstances.
She submerged into the deepest part of the sacred blood pool, gripping the Desire Fragment with both hands and letting her fresh blood flow out from her fingertips into the fragment’s engraved patterns.
As the first in line to inherit the position of Patriarch, she was the best person to pry open the door to the hopeless fate before them.
Crimson light continuously emanated from the Desire Fragment, forming a rotating aureole around Femis that violently reacted with the sacred blood pool already polluted by chaotic forces.
It seemed that the fragment representing the Blood Vulture civilization sensed the anger of its primal force being polluted by chaos, causing it to continuously emit a special frequency of spiritual power from Femis’s hands, making the sacred blood pool truly “boil” in the literal sense.
“It’s really working!”
Femis rejoiced inwardly, marveling that Tris, the family’s disgrace, really was full of surprises.
But before her joy could last even three seconds, an immense force erupted from above her head. The young lady looked up in astonishment to see the boiling sacred blood pool swirling and parting like the Red Sea.
Above her head, Salrokdar held a witch hunter in his grip, his massive blood wings spread out like a dragon’s.
The witch hunter he held struggled but could not make a sound.
His fresh blood continuously gushed out from his nostrils, ears, and mouth, endlessly flowing under the control of Salrokdar’s powerful blood manipulation into his shriveled, corpse-like face, gradually restoring it to its original appearance.
As preparation for dealing with the Blood Vulture Lord, the elite witch hunters must have consumed drugs that could weaken vampires. However, those drugs were useless against Salrokdar, who was already at the Golden Realm and further empowered by the chaotic spiritual power of the sub-dimension.
“Poison. A slight bitterness carrying malice that harms life, just like the temptation that bewitches hearts, or the ‘justice’ that fools willingly bind themselves with.
Ever since life was born, courage has never been a quality conducive to survival, nor a necessity for life.
Not to mention recklessness.”
The Blood Vulture Lord looked down at his daughter rebelling against him, his true blood relative, but his black pupils mixed with purple showed not a trace of emotion.
His shriveled, raspy voice came out of his mouth and echoed in Femis’s trembling ears:
“Just like the combination of recklessness, stupidity and stubbornness, just like what you’re doing now. How could I have such a stupid daughter? I taught you so diligently, ah, you’ve been polluted by Tris’s rebellious nature.
I can only say, you pitiful defective product!”
“Ah!”
Femis felt all the blood in her body reverse course at that moment. The excruciating pain caused the viscous blood to gush out of her skin, forming crimson shackles that bound her limbs and dragged her into the air, even causing the Desire Fragment in her hand to be gripped by Salrokdar’s outstretched hand.
He was still the Blood Vulture Lord!
Before his fall, Femis was only the first in line to inherit his position.
He didn’t want to give it, so Femis couldn’t snatch it!
This land and the Blood Vulture Clan would forever only be his possessions. Under his will, this pitiful thing he had shaped still wanted to rebel against the destined fate and plan?
Heh, vain delusions!
“Bang”
From behind, the Blood Knight Lord Palanno, seeing the pure maiden he had gifted a rose to fall into danger, burst forth in an explosion of spiritual power and combat skills amidst a dazzling flurry of black roses, flickering into existence behind Salrokdar.
His lance, projected as a sacred spear, thrust forward in an attempt to rescue the struggling Femis.
But Salrokdar released his right hand, and the dark, polluted Demon Blade Necessary Evil came to life, precisely blocking the sacred spear’s piercing thrust as a black shadow. The old knight Finoch, attacking from the flank, was also repelled by the lightning of violent purple spiritual power stirred up by the Blood Vulture Lord returning to the sacred blood pool’s domain.
At this moment, Salrokdar was like the legendary Demon Overlord descending to the world.
Silhouetted against the rotating sub-dimension rift behind him, he raised his left hand, summoning a spiritual storm to tear at reality and swallowing the players who failed to dodge in time, instantly shredding them into bloody chunks.
“Ashina, it’s up to you!”
Orchid and Niuniu braced their heavy shields, stubbornly holding the line that was on the verge of collapse, fending off the increasingly frenzied attacks of the Darklings. The hot-blooded Tiger Leopard Rider brothers, eyes red, charged forward with weapons in hand to buy time for the petite girl lying prone, sighting down the barrel of a precisely calibrated demon-hunting rifle.
Lumina’s flute playing was so intense she was almost blowing smoke out of her tongue, but she dared not stop.
Little Ashina was under immense pressure too, but as the current best marksman among the players, her character came with three innate talents related to marksmanship – a “genius.” She had to withstand the pressure and complete their hidden quest now.
The custom bullets Tris had given them were loaded into the chamber, but she likely had only one chance to take the shot.
“It’s no use! He’s too fast!”
Little Ashina shouted through her mouthful of malt candy:
“Someone harass him, even if just for a second!”
“Shua”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a black blur shot along the edge of the sacred blood pool and into the air. Just as Palanno struck the Blade of Desire away to launch an attack on Salrokdar, the hiding Murphy finally made his move.
The Blade of the Desire Clan grazed Femis’s neck as it thrust forward, viciously stabbing into Salrokdar’s wrist and precisely flicking the Desire Fragment out of the Blood Vulture Lord’s hand.
The old knight threw the burning Great Oak Blade in his hand like a javelin. The burning sacred blade sliced past Femis’s body, mercilessly shattering Salrokdar’s binding in a “heaven and earth defying” pose.
With their combined efforts, the young lady regained an opportunity to retaliate. She reached for the Desire Fragment overhead to complete Tris’s final instructions.
But a black blur, like a venom snake hunting prey, flashed by, piercing straight through the young lady’s chest. She was sent flying in a spray of blood, caught in the arms of Brother Meow and the Four Vajras below.
The Blade of Desire Necessary Evil, controlled by Salrokdar, executed a precise strike on its villainous master’s command. Tilting its head, it flashed forward again with a malicious whistle, stabbing directly into Murphy’s heart.
The young vampire had just grabbed the ejected Desire Fragment. Tris’s Elder Blade helped deflect one strike, but just one – the Elder Blade was shattered into pieces by the howling Blade of Desire.
“Bang”
Amidst Ashina’s cheers, her bullet finally left the barrel, screaming forward.
The moment Murphy was struck, Tris’s custom bullet also spun and struck Salrokdar’s brow, the 30x concentrated of daylight potion taking instant effect. Like a bear cub stuck with a needle, Salrokdar wore a pained expression as the Knight Lord charged and stabbed him viciously.
But at the same time, the heavily injured Murphy was flung like a wingless bird towards the boiling sacred blood pool below.
The last thing he saw was Salrokdar’s cold, almost monstrous gaze as the two Golden Realm experts pinned him down, blood still flowing from his brow.
He seemed unconcerned about his own failure or the possibility of death.
“Your name is Murphy?”
As he fell into the sacred blood pool, he heard Salrokdar’s voice.
Laced with mockery and derision.
The Blood Vulture Lord spoke to him mimickingly:
“How was the taste of the spirit summoning ritual I had arranged for you? Since you’ve been fortuitously spared, you should learn to cherish your life. A dangerous, ominous mad dog like Tris who stubbornly refuses to wear any collar, is that something you can associate with?”
“So it was you, you bastard!”
At that moment, Murphy immediately understood the truth behind his reincarnation. He viciously cursed, then sank into the polluted sacred blood pool, weakened by the Blade of Desire piercing his heart and continuously draining his blood.
Even so, Murphy still clutched the pulsating Desire Fragment tightly, not letting it return to Salrokdar’s hands.
He did not know what use holding onto this thing served, now that the young lady was gravely injured and Tris’s plan had essentially failed.
But he just didn’t want to let that miserable old bastard overhead get what he wanted.
He had already utilized all the resources at his disposal, even roping in the Blood Pact Knights that he should have refused as reinforcements, yet he still could not turn the tide.
“We’re going to lose.”
Sinking slowly to the bottom of the blood pool, Murphy looked up and could still see the reflected scene of the Knight Lord, old Finoch, and Salrokdar locked in a deadly battle on the surface of the murky, crimson pool.
He could feel his little players disappearing one by one in the outside world.
Even at this grave disadvantage, they had not stopped fighting.
“I’m such an unqualified admin, unable to lead you all to another victory, unable to even let you truly enjoy the happiness this game should offer. Life in the other world shouldn’t just be endless war and quests.
What’s the point of an absolutely realistic game if you can’t feel any joy from it?”
Murphy was filled with guilt.
His little players had done their best, he could not ask for more from them.
The Blade of Desire piercing his chest greedily devoured Murphy’s blood like a monstrous snake. Unable to pull it out, he could only grasp the slippery hilt wrapped in pseudo-tentacles formed from sub-dimension spiritual power.
He decided to put on a dignified final image for his brief rebirth experience.
But the moment his fingers gripped the hilt of Necessary Evil, coming into contact with that cold, maddening chaotic spiritual power endlessly shrieking in his mind, Murphy’s entire body convulsed like being electrocuted at the bottom of the sacred blood pool.
His character card flickered with red warning lights.
Lines of flashing text flooded his vision, representing some deeply buried emergency program in the admin system being activated:
?Contacted sub-dimension chaotic spirit entity. Detecting low pollution level, high purification success rate…testing admin system antivirus process invocation start. Antivirus program codename ‘Omega’!
Initiating!?
“Bzzt!”
Murphy cried out in that moment.
The tainted sword he gripped convulsed violently, Murphy seemingly becoming a “relay point” for another power called “Omega” to erupt from his fingertips.
The vampire was in such agony he nearly bit his tongue off.
His consciousness also cleared through the scouring pain. Although unsure why this damned “Omega antivirus program” was only activating now, it didn’t matter!
Because he could feel the polluted demon blade in his grip trembling.
It was screaming!
Letting out shrieks a million times more agonized than Murphy’s cries, abandoning its previous arrogant swagger like a rabid dog brutally struck, frantically shaking its head and tail in an attempt to leap out of Murphy’s chest wound and flee back to its villainous master.
“Like hell you will!”
The usually elegant vampire bared a ferocious grin at the bottom of the sacred blood pool. He wrenched the demon blade from his wound, blood spraying everywhere as he viciously plunged it into the rocky bottom.
Well, in this situation it wasn’t just this blade that had been polluted by sub-dimension spiritual power!
The entire sacred blood pool had been contaminated, connected to the sub-dimension rift that could blow up all of Transia at any moment. Murphy’s location was practically the most toxic place in the material world.
Since the admin system initiated an antivirus program upon contact with sub-dimension spiritual power, it could be judged that his system greatly loathed the sub-dimension, perhaps even designed specifically to counter it!
And now, failing to properly utilize this finally triggered mechanism would be a waste of the near “bone-crushing agony” he was enduring.
With a ferocious expression, Murphy was enveloped in strange, flickering pale lightning.
This was the peculiar phenomenon caused by the collision and mutual destruction of purification and chaotic spiritual power. He used his own body to pin down the shrieking Blade of Desire embedded in the rock below.
He knew this thing, as well as the polluted sacred blood pool, were connected to Salrokdar. So if they could feel pain, then this agony should be transmittable to Salrokdar!
“You mocked me, huh?
Dug a pit for my past self to die a miserable death, huh?
I promised Tris I’d make you pay a fitting price for the pain and humiliation she endured over the past hundred-plus years! Daring to kill my little players before my eyes, did you really think you filthy creatures were so formidable?
However, I always follow through on my words!
Victory will be ours!”
Embodying a “humanoid antivirus software,” with sparks flickering from the corners of his eyes, Murphy raised his head from the blood pool’s bottom where he was being viciously purged and purified, gazing at Salrokdar’s distorted form reflected on the turbulent bloody surface above.
He raged inwardly:
“I won’t lose! I won’t die here! I’ll live…I’ll live on and grasp the future with my own hands! That future belongs to me, and no one else can take it away!
Now, make it rain gold coins!
You wretched old thing that grovels to the sub-dimension!”