The moment Daimon mentioned the Blood King, old Ben and his friend Antonio, immediately set up a barrier around the whole area, which was kind of weird considering there was a barrier in place in the headquarters, in the form of a beast treasure that had the form of a pillar, in the center of the whole area, projecting an invisible field that would restrain and weaken Ghouls.
It was something exclusively reserved for important battles, since they had limited number of those equipment, the sole ninth generation treasures, that are under the strict vigilance of the two leaders of the Adjudicators.
"Kid, are you sure of what you are said?", asked Antonio with a worried expression, to which Daimon nodded.
"Well, he not only declared himself that, but was called that by the traitors from the church, that Archbald guy was also probably the one who turned Felix into a flesh eating demon", he said.
Daimon couldn't help but notice Emily clenching her hands, just as he was about to ask what was the problem, she herself explained the origin of her frustration.
"That coward obtained an ability thanks to the blood of my father, so even if I managed to capture him, we can't kill him… nor interrogate him", she mumbled.
The slightly heavy atmosphere, was broken by the crazy girl being as wild as usual.
"Ah, just leave it to Gabriel, his torture methods are just ahh~", said the crazy girl as she tried to jump into Daimon's arms, just to be dodged and fall to the ground, quite ungraciously.
Sarah's words made everyone besides Jasmine who covered her mouth with her hands to giggle, give Daimon weird gazes, which made the latter sigh.
"Don't listen to her, she is… helpless, however I would like to have a try, that being said it will have to be under my own terms", said Daimon as he avoided the crazy girl like the plague.
Emily's eyes glowed, as she remembered the explanation Daimon gave them, about people who had "special abilities" and him being one of them.
'If it is him then he might be able to…', she thought before saying.
"Please lend me a hand, I… want to be the one who kills him", she was so close to kill Felix earlier, when her transformation not only hit its limit, but all the Archdukes used some tricks to flee, so she only managed to capture Felix who sealed himself in a strange barrier, probably to stall for time knowing that the Blood King would come out.
Daimon nodded and then turned to see old Ben.
"I'll get the information you need, but it won't be for free, I want time alone with some of the prisoners you captured, I'll be the one to chose which, deal?", he asked.
"Deal", answered old Ben, they had no claim over Felix since it was Emily and Jeanne the ones who captured him, but they needed the information.
Unfortunately, with them revealing their real selves in front of practically all the higher human echelon, those guys had become wary of them.
Previously, they were more tolerant because they thought that if anything happened, old Ben and the others would be able to easily suppress Emily, but now they saw that not only Emily but Jeanne too are quite strong, and that made them feel threatened which is why they are being avoided.
Dorothy isn't the only one that openly despised Emily after all, but now they had real motives to be wary of them, and while old Ben and Antonio don't see things that way, they have to keep humanity tied tightly together, otherwise they will be eradicated, so the way they treated Jeanne and Emily had to change, from casual to a much more neutral way.
Of course, that applied to Reyne as well, and she expected it, they were now acquittances at most, it wasn't the best result but it wasn't the worst either, people's minds are hard to change after all.
So now old Ben could only rely on Daimon to act as a mediator since he is "human", everyone saw him using the key which was passed down from ancient times, by the first king, so he was kind of a celebrity among humans as of current.
After discussing a couple of things, old Ben and Antonio left to do their own things, they had to organize the army and prepare for the clash with the ghouls.
"We don't have time to lose, you two eat and rest in the tent, I'll be back in a second", said Daimon to Jasmine and Sarah.
"Mm", Jasmine nodded as she dragged Sarah along with her, they had some catch up to do, especially since she saw "that" on her wrist.
"You also go and rest, though you didn't use it, the change is still too harsh for your body", said Jeanne to her daughter, who followed Jasmine and Sarah, they only had one tent set up due to the promptness of the situation.
After that, Emily led the way to a small cave which was behind the lines, this area where the temporary headquarter was settled, was originally a whole, but now a separate area was assigned to Jeanne and Emily to prevent friction.
Naturally it didn't come with all the facilities that the other part had, so they had to improvise a prison for Felix and chose the cave at which Daimon was arriving right now.
Emily waved her hand and the barrier opened to let them in, inside of the cave there was a large empty space in which center there was an adult sized red crystal that was being restrained by black chains.
"Even if it is a poor imitation… that is still part of my father's ability, so until that guy runs out of mana, I can't do anything to him", said Emily with a hatred filled expression, seeing the ability that his father exclusively wielded being used by an enemy like that.
Daimon's eyes glowed behind his mask, that red crystal was interesting, it basically condensed not only all the mana of the one inside, but also a massive amount of vitality, though there was no battle aura, in a sense it was a mix between something a mage and a knight could do, similar to his strongest techniques that included both mana and battle aura.
'This is worth investigating, vampires in general can manipulate vitality to a certain extent, one would believe they would be talented knights, and yet one rarely sees a high stage vampire Archknight, outside of the Nosfear', he thought as he approached the red crystal.
Felix looked the newcomer and he smirked, though he couldn't speak as the crystal isolated him from the outside, he could still move a bit in the small space inside of the crystal.
But then Felix suddenly had a bad premotion as he saw the masked young man smirking as he took out a black one-edged sword which exuded a strange aura.
Daimon looked at the capricious sword which was "ignoring" him, apparently Disaster was sulking because Daimon didn't let it destroy and devour the white cross bow, at least that's what Narasha understood from it.
'For being a living catastrophe, you are quite childish you know, here I have a candy', thought Daimon as he casually stabbed Disaster into the crystal, that was easily pierced as if it was nothing.
"Crack!", the very moment Disaster pierced the crystal, the thing cracked, as the capricious sword started draining all the condensed vitality, which made Felix pale, while both Emily and Jeanne smiled.
"We couldn't scratch that thing even after hitting it with everything except our killer techniques, you know?", mumbled Jeanne with a small smile appearing at the corner of her mouth.
It's not like that ability of Felix was invincible, heck, Emily's father who was way more skilled and stronger than Felix, ultimately fell, but it was perfect to stall for time, which is how Emily's mother was able to escape from the capital to the wilderness.
Unfortunately, that crystal was a condensed mass of energies, and as such, it was practically a snack for Disaster, as the cracks that kept appearing on the crystal in a matter of seconds, suggested.
For Felix's horror, the crystal in which he put everything he had, exploded into shards that were then devoured by the masked man's black sword, and he was then grabbed by his face, by the latter.
"I'm short in time, tell me everything you know", calmly said Daimon, to which Felix snorted.
"I will die even if I answer, just look at that woman's murderous expression, now, if you guarantee my safety then… aghhhhh!", Felix hadn't even finished speaking when his eyes were burned by white flames, making him scream to the top of his lungs, his whole body squirmed as he experienced the worst pain of his life.
"For someone that has lived quite some time, I would believe you know there are far worse things than dying, but again you became that guy's dog to extend your life, so I guess I should have expected it", said Daimon as he kept burning Felix's face.
The recently turned into Ghoul old man, had used all his mana and the blood it had in storage, to form that crystal, his ring was naturally confiscated by Rita, before he could react, so he couldn't resist at all.
"S-Stop, I'll talk!!!", he shouted, being burned by Demon Light is no joke, Daimon was able to inflict pain even to Nethereals who are supposed to be immune to it, so you can imagine how fucked up Felix looked, he had a burn with the shape of a hand, and his eyes were fried, so he was rolling on the ground, but the pain didn't diminish at all.
Jeanne took out a healing potion from her ring and threw it at Felix, making the vial explode on his face, smoke was released from the point of contact, and the burn slightly diminished, but it didn't heal, in fact Felix was screaming once again.
"Ah right, the alchemy of this planet is quite flawed, just give him something to ease the pain, it will be faster than healing him", said Daimon, even Aurora praised Daimon's white flames, she the best healer in Neptune had to get serious to cure a wound produced by Daimon's Demon Light, so it would take a lot of the low efficiency healing potions of Kerrol to deal with it.
This time it was Emily the one who acted, she was in charge of interrogation, so she had pain inhibitors in her ring, still she had to force quite a large doze down Felix's throat, before he was finally able to keep quiet.
"Was that your battle aura, I guess that strange little girl wasn't bluffing", said Emily with an interested voice, which made Daimon bitterly smile.
"Don't pay attention to her words", he said, he was starting to miss the bone general, whose favorite hobby besides bragging about his young master, is torturing the enemies of his young master.
"Heh, so you can also make expressions like those", said Jeanne from the sides, as she observed Daimon acting like a kid his "age", instead of his usual serious and sharp self.
Daimon softly laughed, and then turned to see Felix as he started to interrogate him, mainly about the Blood King and the process used to turn him into a ghoul, unfortunately though Felix had a lot of information about the second, none of he living Archdukes knew much about the Blood King.
"I-It is not only me, if anyone knew about the king that would have been… her father, since the main branch of her family is said to have been the ones who received the most blood from the king back then, that's why I choose this lineage for my transformation", said Felix as he pointed at Emily, whose eyes were deathly cold.
She knew that if Ghoul's blood and flesh weren't poison for other Ghouls, the Archdukes would have consumed her father's remains, instead they kept his blood for investigation, and one of the uses the blood of one of the two who were said to have the highest potentials, since the Blood King, was to create more Archdukes like Felix.
Apparently, he wasn't the first one to undergo the process, but was the first one that managed to survive, meaning the Ghouls had chances to infiltrate humans in the past, but failed due to their spies dying in such a dumb way.
'Idiots, if hybrids could be created so easily, most humans would have already done so', thought Daimon, even back at the four galaxies, where undead had the highest amount of knowledge regarding races and genetics, besides the good old mass reproduction and hope to produce a result, variants couldn't be produced in mass.
At least not functional ones, those artificial tries to produce a talented laboratory being, ended in abominations with though strong battle capacities, short lifespans and genetic damage, like the chimera created by that woman back at the prison.
Besides that, Daimon also ordered Felix to give them the locations of human farms, and strategic places of the traitors from the church.
"Anything else you would like to ask?", said Daimon to those two just to see them shaking their heads.
"Okay, then I leave it in your hands, don't forget our deal", said Daimon as he moved aside to let Emily kill Felix.
"Mm, thanks", said the dark grey-haired Emily, her hair painted pitch black and her eyes turned blood red as she entered her vampire form.
"The king will avenge my death, you'll all follow me to hell", poisonously said Felix as he spat on the ground, unfortunately for him, Emily simply snorted, her right hand was covered in a wild looking black and red armor, as she pierced Felix's chest with it, and then tore of his heart out of his body.
"Blegh!", having his heart carved out of his chest, Felix vomited blood and died on the spot, his skin became grey lifeless the next second as his corpse collapsed on the ground.
For Ghouls, the heart was actually more important than the head, the Archdukes could even survive if beheaded as long as their hearts were still there, naturally their hearts are usually protected quite fiercely, but Felix had no mana left and Disaster destroyed every defensive array on the armor and clothes he was wearing, so this result was obvious.
Emily then closed her fist, crushing Felix's heart in a puddle of red viscous liquid, which she observed with a sad expression on her pretty face, the blood in the heart of a Ghoul was the most important, and in Felix's case, that blood was the one that he obtained from, Emily's father.
"I trust you won't do anything to humiliate my father's blood", said Emily as she offered her hand at Daimon, who shook his head and just took a few drops from it.
"This is enough, but I suggest you to keep the rest, who knows it might come in handy later", he said as he stored the vial in his inventory, he asked to keep a sample of Emily's father's blood, for his mission.
Apparently unlike his Black Armored Shark lineage, for his vampire lineage quality was enough, he just needed a small sample that will be integrated into his own, and so far in what Ghoul regards, Emily's father's blood was the strongest.
Naturally he wanted a sample from Jeanne and Emily, as they were the first and only Nelapsi he has ever heard off, and that was part of their deal, but he would obtain it, after everything was over.
"So, vampires like you, can drink each other's blood without any problem, I never felt the urge to drink Emi's blood?", asked Jeanne with a curious voice.
"Well, it depends, the races that exist back from where I come, don't find each other's blood to be poisonous, but there can be detrimental effects depending on the case… and I have only drunk the blood of a really selected group of people, this samples I'm taking are for different use", said Daimon.
He will only use his fangs for the pleasure of his girls, that's something he decided a long time ago, what he will do with the blood samples, involves his Apex Predator constitution to integrate other lineages, so he won't be "drinking" them, but absorbing them.
After all, it's not like drinking other race's blood is enough to obtain a lineage, but of course Emily and Jeanne didn't know Daimon had that ability, but it had its limits, the Apex Predator had to consider the lineages worthy of being absorbed, or it had to be part of a mission, since even Emily's father's blood didn't wake the interest of his Apex Predator one.
'I'm surrounded by cheeky things, that damn lazy magic core and even my main lineage…', thought Daimon as he inwardly sighed.
"Ah right, here are the vials of blood we obtained from the Archdukes we fought, unfortunately two of them escaped before we had the chance to clash with them, but we got the other two", said Jeanne as she handed two vials to Daimon.
"Oh, that reminds me, here, choose what you want, I'll show the loot to Reyne later, since she also gave me a little gift earlier", answered Daimon as he accepted the vials and then took out the pile of treasures he stole from the owner of the ruin.
The only treasure he needed/wanted was that trident, so he wasn't going to be stingy, Reyne obtained blood from that guy directly descended from one of the two Archdukes, that escaped, for him after all.
Jeanne and Emily smiled and then looked through the pile of treasures, while Daimon casually left the cave as he received a message from old Ben, not without dropping by the tent where those three were resting.
He entered just to be met with the strange scene of those three staring at each other, Daimon didn't know why but it smelled like powder here, so he cleared his throat and then said.
"Ahem, I left the rest of the treasures from back then, you can go and choose whatever you like, from it, I'll be back in a moment".
"Mm", the three of them made a low sound of affirmation, without even turning to see him, which made Daimon chuckle.
…
Leaving that aside, he went to the other side of the headquarter, where old Ben was already waiting for him outside of the prison.
"Only me and Antonio are here, we won't peek, so suit yourself", said the old man, to which Daimon nodded.
"These are the locations of the human farms, bases of the church and other plans of which Felix knew", he said as he handed a scroll to old Ben, who nodded in response.
Daimon then entered the prison and went straight to the cells at the innermost part, there was a cell which was only containing a single ghoul, a woman who seemed to be in her early thirties.
"Oh, aren't you the key holder, what brings you here, do you perhaps want to win this lady's heart", said the woman with a coquettish voice.
Daimon smirked in response.
"You know, I was about to say that not everyone is as stupid as Adam, but you aren't that mistaken this time", he said.
Just as the woman seductively walked towards Daimon, she froze on the spot as she looked downwards just to see there was a hand made out of shadows, piercing a hole in her chest, before her heart was taken out.
There was a pair of eyes looking at the whole scene from within Daimon's shadow, the usually calm and composed Rita, mumbled to herself.
"Disgusting Bitch", the shadow hand then crushed the heart, turning it into a red viscous mess, which was then placed inside a bottle, and only then handled to Daimon, in a respectful manner.
Daimon could feel the "praise me" gaze of Rita, aiming at him from within his shadow, so he said.
"Thanks, that only leaves us one more to go, I wonder what will be the difference between the lineage of the Blood King's and the ones of the other Ghouls".
Daimon basically only needed the blood samples of the four Archdukes, or their direct descendants, since all the other families descended from them, Jeanne and Emily got him two, Reyne got him the third one, and he just took the fourth one, additionally he got the one from Emily's father, who was the only member of its own branch, Emily no longer counted since she wasn't a Ghoul anymore.
He then left the prison, not without burning the body until there was nothing left, this cell was isolated from all the others, since it belonged to the general of the army, which was that woman he just killed, and technically it was Emily's cousin, as it was one of the daughters, from the sister of her mother.
Daimon nodded at the old Ben, to tell him, he was done with his business and then left to the area assigned to Jeanne and Emily, as he observed the log of the system.
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