Hatred

Okay. Now I'm addicted.

I sat down on a small boulder and took in a deep breath before exhaling.

I looked at the blood covering my body and gulped, trying to control myself.

Carefully wiping the blood off my sleeve, I looked at my blood-covered palm and took deep breaths.

Come on, Mordred. Control yourself.

But the blood on my hands glistened like fine wine, the sweet smell invading my nose and stirring something primal within me.

My breathing grew rapid, and my body felt hot. A ravenous hunger clawed at my insides, and I found it increasingly difficult to resist the urge.

Well. Fuck it.

I brought my palm close to my face and licked the blood off it, the warm crimson liquid coating my tongue.

I grimaced. Ugh. Mixed blood. It feels like I am drinking from multiple people.

But it was enough.

As I swallowed the blood, I felt a burst of energy and my mind cleared.

For a moment, the images of my nightmare that plagued me vanished.

I let out a shuddering breath of relief and relaxed my body.

I guess it's because of my vampiric lineage.

Whenever I drink the blood of others, I receive a boost of energy greater than what Blood Acceleration could provide, and it also clears my mind.

My blood tasting first began after Iris and I learned about my lineage.

It was a harmless experiment. At first, I tried consuming my own blood but didn't feel anything.

Then, with a mix of curiosity and trust, Iris gave me some of her blood to taste.

The effects were immediate and intoxicating, leaving me hooked.

We realized that, unlike the Progenitor, I found it difficult to resist the consumption of blood and that it would lead to a nasty addiction. So she made me stop with the blood consumption.

After Iris left the Shield, however, I was an emotional wreck and constantly plagued by my nightmares, which seemed to get worse every time I closed my eyes to sleep.

I've lost count of the sleepless nights in my room. That's when I started consuming blood again.

They were not my proudest moments, but drinking blood helped to ease the suffering I go through daily with the constant battles and nightmares.

So yeah. I'm a vampire now, minus the fangs and weird dramatic speaking style.

Just before I could have another lick, a voice stopped me.

"That is quite a disturbing sight."

A Deathwalker approached me with a smile. She wore an eye patch, and her face was scarred, but I recognized her gleaming amber eye and red hair.

Oh, the blue tiger mechanima by her side was also quite evident.

I stared at her in surprise. "No way. Captain Sparks? You're alive? I haven't seen you in a long time. I thought you were dead!"

She chuckled. "I wish I was, Your Highness. When I lost my eye, I wished I were dead."

I winced. "What happened?"

"A wraith drove its claw deep into my eye socket, one of the Deathwalkers in my Unit," she shrugged. "The eye sustained too much damage."

Sparks touched her eyepatch and grinned. "But hey! I look very cool in this! I look like a pirate with a mechanical tiger!"

I chuckled and held out my hand. Basil uncoiled herself from my arm and slithered over to Tony the tiger mechanima.

Both mechanimas sized each other up, and in the next minute, started playing around with each other.

It's quite a bizarre sight: a blue, super-sized mechanical tiger playing with a white, mechanical snake whose size kept on shifting on a bloody battlefield covered in corpses, weapons, and broken mechanimas.

"Enough about me," Sparks said and looked me up. "I am amazed. What the hell happened to that little kid I saved four years ago?"

"You have grown to become quite a dashing young man. Not only did you surpass most Deathwalkers in terms of strength, but you have also created quite a reputation."

"The Mad Prince," she said with a dramatic flair.

I let out a small chuckle. "That's crazy."

"Not as crazy as you dating the bloody Fairy of Tenebris. You guys were the perfect match," her gaze softened. "I'm sorry about what happened to her."

My gaze fell to the ground. "Thanks. It's been quite hard."

I felt a hand on my head as Sparks ruffled my hair. "You have experienced things that are too much for a young one like you, but you endured."

I looked up to see her warm smile and glittering amber gaze. "You've done well, Your Highness."

"I heard you'll be out in one week. So please endure a bit more," she grinned. "After all, Iris is waiting for you."

Seeing her bright face, I couldn't help but smile. "Now I know why others call you Captain Sunshine."

Her face scrunched up. "No way they are calling me that?"

"Don't underestimate the creativity of a few bored Deathwalkers," I quipped, and we started to laugh.

That's when we heard the bells ring. We froze and I looked up, wondering if I was imagining it.

"Okay. That's not fair," Sparks grumbled, her gaze also on the massive bells ringing rapidly.

The bells ringing right after a battle can mean only one thing. A second incursion.

I quickly looked at the Tear, expecting a huge army of daemons to silently march out of the massive portal.

But there was nothing, not even a single smoky boot.

The bells kept ringing. The ones ringing them definitely saw something, and its something bad judging by how frantically they are ringing the massive bells.

"Minerva. What is it?" I asked the AI. 

"Mordred. Run."

Just as those chilling words from her echoed in my ears, a shadow suddenly fell over me.

A wave of revolting energy swept over me, and a feeling of despair that I desperately tried to forget began to consume me from the inside.

I raised my eyes, and an old rage reignited inside me and consumed the despair as I took in the owner of the shadow.

Its faceless visage looked down on me, and a horrifying smile stretched across the smooth black canvas.

The black roots of darkness that made up its body writhed and pulsed as if each one of them was alive and came together to form the terrifying humanoid towering over me.

There is no way I would ever forget this rooty son of a bitch.

"Asphodel."

My voice was barely a whisper as I stared at the creature that humiliated me and killed Felix four years ago.

There was a flash of black, and I immediately jumped back before a powerful shockwave swept over me.

As I looked ahead, I witnessed the complete destruction of the ground where I and Sparks were standing.

Wait. Sparks!

"Captain Sparks!" I yelled and looked around frantically. Please don't be dead.

"Your Highness!" her voice came from behind me.

I quickly glanced back and my heart stopped at the sight.

Blood covered her left side, and her arm had been completely torn savagely from her body.

"I'll be fine," she said with a weak smile before collapsing.

Suddenly the air began to tremble, and tremors passed over the battlefield.

The ground shattered under the power of my aura as I glared coldly at the smiling Abnormal.

I gripped my daggers so hard that blood began to flow out of my palms.

"You're fucking dead. You bastard." I said quietly.

*******

Waves of ardor swept over Blood Valley as powerful forces clashed savagely across the battlefield.

Crimson snow scattered, body parts flew, rocks shattered along with the ground, and the air itself rippled as the two monsters decimated everywhere they met.

Mordred, surrounded by a whirlwind of blood, unleashed a barrage of devastating strikes with his sword and blood appendages upon Asphodel.

The Abnormal daemon, however, dodged and parried almost all of them.

With its powerful arms and black roots, it launched counterattacks that ripped through the air, which Mordred barely avoided.

He gritted his teeth as the roots penetrated his uniform and left deep cuts on his body, each of them stung like crazy.

Even though he was at the peak of Master A rank, he couldn't land a scratch on the Master S ranked daemon.

Even in his Triquetra state, he was barely keeping up with Asphodel's devastating attacks.

One hit from the Abnormal is enough to kill him, so he is avoiding every single attack.

Blocking another attack of black roots that shot toward him, Mordred jumped back and swept his hand across the air.

{Haema: Vortex Bloodlances}

Multiple vortices of blood quickly formed around him, and they took the form of rapidly spinning crimson lances with tips of crystallized blood.

He immediately launched them while rushing forward, blood swirling around his sword.

Asphodel swiftly avoided some blood lances and swatted the rest away by transforming its hand into a writhing bundle of black roots.

Mordred appeared beside it and aimed a powerful horizontal slash to the abdomen. His blood appendages lashed forward toward the daemon's head and chest.

Asphodel's eerie smile widened, and its side erupted into black roots that rushed toward Mordred.

"Shit!" he swore and quickly jumped back, but not before a sharp root struck him in the chest, leaving an ugly gash that burned like acid.

He winced in pain, but he didn't have time to attempt to heal the wound, as Asphodel's grinning face appeared in his vision.

Instinctively he reinforced and crossed his arms before him as the daemon dealt a bone-shattering punch, launching him into the air.

Midair, agony pulsed through his limbs. With a desperate twist, he merged his appendages into massive wings that erupted from his back.

Just then, a sudden tug on his leg yanked him downward. "This is going to hurt," he muttered as the black root tightened around his ankle, snapping bone and slamming him into the ground.

The impact cratered the frozen earth beneath him.

Coughing blood, Mordred saw Asphodel advancing slowly toward him.

His body throbbed with pain, bones broken and piercing organs, forming deadly internal bleeding.

But he remained calm and took a deep breath.

{Haema: Blood Reconstruction}

Arching his back, Mordred screamed in agony as his blood went into overdrive, knitting his bones back together, repairing internal damage, and stopping severe bleeding.

Utilizing his unique vampiric lineage and the self-healing capabilities of his strand, Mordred devised a new code that would reconstruct his extensively damaged body within seconds.

As long as he was capable of using the code, he could instantly heal himself in a minute if there were no healers nearby, no matter how broken his body became.

However, it is an extremely painful code that also requires intense focus and mental strength.

It was a code he used sparingly, its excruciating pain likened to every nerve being doused in acid and molten gold.

Only in dire circumstances, without healers nearby, did he use the code.

But he had developed his mental strength to such a degree that he could barely withstand the pain without blacking out.

Emphasis on barely.

But this time he didn't care. He is ready to feel even worse pain as long as he can get up and inflict a blow on the daemon.

Screaming himself hoarse, Mordred got back on his feet and gazed at Asphodel, who stopped in its tracks and tilted its head at him, as if intrigued and amazed at the tenacity of the human before it.

Steam wafted from Mordred's body as he wiped away tears and saliva from his face and caught his breath.

His crimson eyes glowed as they fixed on Asphodel with a cold, calculating hatred.

"I am going to enjoy ripping you apart."