Just before starting, Ikaris suddenly paused and asked Magnus,
"What about sunlight vulnerability? I don't wear enchanted rings like Malia and unlike her, I won't be a Dhampir but a full-blown Vampire. Am I not in danger of catching fire at the first light of dawn?"
The old Archmagus had listened to his misgivings many times before, and he was quick to reassure him in a honeyed voice,
"Stop fretting, I've already promised you that I'll lend you one of my old rings so that you won't suffer from this inconvenience. With the Constitution and Vitality provided by your other Bloodlines and the fact that you are far from being a Vampire Progenitor, the curse shouldn't be too burdensome to bear even without the ring..."
Ikaris frowned. The Vampire's barely reined-in impatience and anticipation was far from comforting. The overriding feeling was that Magnus couldn't wait for him to absorb his Bloodspark and become a Vampire like himself. The Archmagus may have been the initiator of the Blood Legacy Grand Plan, but deep down he despised all other species, thinking Vampires were superior.
This arrogance that comes from deep within their bones was a common trait of many superior races. Compared to other openly racist or outright hostile Vampires of his generation, Magnus could be considered an innocent soul.
"What if I absorb the Angel of Zar's feather first?" Ikaris suggested out of the blue. "That way I would gain some affinity with the sun and light along with some resistance to it just like with the Angel of Faulch's."
"And why not afterwards?" Magnus snorted dismissively. "Look at the description of your Nephilim of Faulch Bloodline. Your Dark and Death Element Resistances are only 10%. It won't make much of a difference. You might as well put on the ring I'm going to lend you straight away. Do you even know how many people would kill to absorb my Bloodspark?! So stop complaining and get to work!"
Ikaris tsked dismissively in his head but stopped quibbling.
'Fine. I hope your Bloodline lives up to your boasts...'
Resigned, he picked up the glistening egg-shaped ruby again in his hands and sighed,
"Assimilation."
This time the teenager was familiar with the process and knew that the initial assimilation was the one that caused the most severe mutations on his body. As soon as a strand of scarlet light leaked out of the Bloodspark and seeped into his palms, Ikaris braced himself with clenched teeth.
His endurance and experience was not what it used to be a few days ago, and he managed to stay conscious for a few seconds. Unfortunately, his Assimilation Spark was not the same either, and the crimson crystal egg's energy drain had a much higher output.
Soon his body was suffused with an eerie reddish halo and his already fair skin began to pale dangerously as the bones of his face writhed beneath his skin, shifting and recombining to seek an even more perfect symmetry and aesthetic than before. Vampires were known to all be beautiful and it was no myth.
Ikaris struggled to stay awake for a few more seconds, his golden irises flickering between yellow, orange and red, then an overwhelming pain clouded his vision, prompting him to let out a deafening roar that woke Malia and Ellie with a start.
"ROOOAR!"
The two women rushed out of bed without dressing, Malia even grabbing her sword thinking the village was under attack. She stormed into the boy's room, forcing open the locked door with a frenzied kick.
"Hold on Ikaris, I'm here to help y-"
Malia froze as she came face to face with a huge black Werewolf covered in a crimson halo of light tainted by wisps of black and gray smoke. The monster's two eyes shone like two red stars in the dark room, giving the illusion that a demon had risen from the underworld to attack them.
However, the Dhampir recognized the aura given off by the strange crimson halo coating the monster. She was extremely familiar with this light: Blood Energy.
Her pupils narrowed as she discovered this. Her sharp gaze darted around the room and stopped a split second later on the glowing egg-shaped ruby that had rolled to a corner of the room. A little farther on, she found the jewel box ajar and peeked at several of the items inside.
Her hair stood on end as she saw the three feathers, the snow-white fang and the sapphire-blue scale. Each of these things seemed to be a collectible trinket, but the auras emanating from these relics were oppressive.
Letting her gaze roam over the black feather and white fang, Malia also found their aura on Ikaris. Remembering the stories her mother had told her as a child, an implausible hypothesis crossed her mind.
'No, that's impossible.' She immediately rejected the idea. He was just a normal human a few weeks earlier. As talented as he was, it was practically suicide.
"I-Ikaris?" Ellie stammered as she came in just after, white as a sheet and shaking like a leaf.
The boy was not in a position to hear them, having long since passed out. On the other hand, his bestial instinct had taken over and upon sighting the two women, the creature immediately began to salivate, a stream of saliva dripping onto the floor.
"Oh crap..." Malia's eyes suddenly widened in horror.
With one hand she pushed Ellie out of the way and without thinking she turned into a Kitsune, a cute looking fox but as large as a big wolf. Yet in front of Ikaris, her slender body looked tiny.
As proud and haughty as Malia was, she was not stupid. When it came to a life and death situation, she would never hold back.
The bushy orange tail wagging behind her magically split, Malia instantly becoming a Two-tailed Dhampir-Kitsune. Her orange eyes turned red like Ikaris and before the monster could charge, a strobe flash burst forth from her pupils, forcing the black Werewolf into an illusion.
ROOARR!
The illusion shattered half a second later and gray smoke covered the ground. Several skeletons armed with spears, daggers, and bone shields crawled out of the smoke and apathetically threw themselves at Malia. Shocked, the Kitsune smashed them with her claws, but inwardly she was terrified.
"What on earth is going on here?"
Before she could answer, the wisps of black smoke oozing from Ikaris' pores and mixing with his red halo disappeared. The next second, the Werewolf's red eyes turned black and Malia was suddenly struck by an invisible spell.
Being a Sorcerer, her Magic Defense neutralized most of the insidious magic, but a small amount managed to get past her guard. A feeling of weakness overcame her and one of her tails vanished.
Then two more unseen spells hit her consecutively, and her vision turned pitch black, and an unnatural and irrational fear rose up from deep within her, preventing her from thinking.
'A Fear Spell and Black Veil?!' Malia realized immediately with a shocked expression.
She had definitely underestimated the boy's progress. Everyone had underestimated him!
While she was deprived of her senses and distracted, Ikaris finally went on the attack. His thigh muscles contracted, his claws scraped the ground forming deep grooves in the wooden floor and with a lunge he disappeared.
A black, blurred figure crossed the distance between itself and Malia in the blink of an eye and with a swipe of its claw a bloodied fox was hurled into the air letting out a yelp of pain, sending a spray of blood in its wake that washed over Ellie's terrified face.
Seeing the monster slowly approaching Malia, who was still groggy, Ellie bit her own tongue to snap out of her daze and uttered the only spell she had any mastery of,
"Black Veil!"
Losing his sight, Ikaris froze with a confused expression, but soon his bestial instincts took over and he began to calmly sniff the air for his prey. Still, it gave Malia plenty of time to get to her feet.
"Thanks Ellie." The Dhampir winced in pain as she pressed the deep gash tearing through her chest from her right shoulder to her left hip. If she wasn't contracting her abs, her intestines would have spilled out onto the floor.
With her Blood Energy, she closed the surface wound, but the internal bleeding was far from over. After that, she took several seconds to channel all her Blood Energy into her voice and eyes, then used one of the innate abilities of all Vampires: Influence.
This skill was usually dependent on her Soul Strength, her Charm, the purity of her Bloodline and her Blood Energy levels. No Vampire was willing to sacrifice their Blood Energy to use this ability, but here it was her only option since she could not bring herself to kill him.
Ellie passed out a few seconds later, out of Stamina, but that was enough for Malia. Clearing her throat, she shouted in a hypnotic and suave voice,
"Sleep!"
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