Ikaris was startled when he was yelled at, but realizing that the old man's condition was indeed critical he rushed over. Hugging the huge poisonous tusk with all his strength, he yanked back hard whilst pretending to ignore the stench stinging his nostrils.
"Huff, huff, damn it! It's fucking heavy!" The teen gasped as he barely managed to dislodge it an inch as he pulled at it with every fiber of his being.
But that was enough for Magnus. The freed space regenerated laboriously and he regained some strength. Together, one pushing and the other pulling, they gradually managed to remove the huge tusk.
When it was almost out, Ikaris tilted it to the side and it fell heavily to the ground, rolling along Malia's barren vegetable patch. This caused the impaled man to suffer further injury as the sharp end slid up his chest towards his neck, but it was nothing for his regenerative powers.
Once freed from this invasive object, the old man regained some color, but it did not change his destiny. The recovery was too slow and the poison was spreading too fast.
"My wounds have healed but the poison has damaged my cells too badly." He sighed deeply. "I have less than an hour. But with BLOOD, I can give you the gift I promised."
"Couldn't a spell do the trick? I'm sure your Divine Spark must be super developed right?" Ikaris asked with incomprehension. From his perspective, detoxifying a poison with magic should be a breeze.
"Aah! You don't know what you're talking about boy. This is no ordinary venom, but that of a Narvath." Magnus disparaged him harshly. "You're forgetting the Curse of Neia. If I use my Divine Spark once more, my Soul will disintegrate and my bones will turn to dust. I have long since reached my limit. It has been 3700 years since I last used my Divine Spark, waiting for my time to come, watching over my empire and the continent. My death will have some annoying consequences for the Confederation and the various Vampire clans, but nothing that can't be handled."
"Wait a second, you're a Vampire? Shouldn't you be unable to walk in the sun?" Ikaris questioned with interest. He already had his doubts after the creature hypnotized him and tried to drink his blood, but now he was set.
"Peh! Don't compare me to those low-life Vampires." The old man grumbled in outrage. Then he sheepishly admitted, "I use an enchanted ring."
The Vampire stretched out his hand and gently tapped the ring with his finger. It was a thick gold ring set with a ruby as large as a quail's egg. If he wanted to, he could use his ringed fists like brass knuckles.
Wondering how much such rings were worth, Ikaris glanced enviously at Magnus, who snorted,
"When I'm dead you can have it all. You'll need it. But they have my Soul Imprint on them, so don't expect to use them as you please."
The boy answered nothing, but inwardly he snickered contemptuously,
'If it's so problematic why don't you take it off before you croak?'
This was what he would have liked to say, but his sense of propriety prevented him from doing so for his own good. Instead, he went for the blood the Vampire needed. Petty, he selected the ugliest aborigine in the village (who obviously had no head), and dragged him to the old man.
"What? Are you going to make me drink blood from that?" Magnus' lips twitched as he saw the state of the corpse. "He doesn't have a head anymore, idiot. He's been bleeding for a long time and the little that's left is coagulating."
Also quite the trickster, Ikaris smirked snidely,
"But I'm sure for a prominent Vampire like you, using some kind of Bloodmancy to absorb his blood must be a breeze, right? Or you just enjoy drinking the blood at the source!"
"Ahem... That's right, haha... Anyway, I won't sink my fangs into that. Period." Magnus put an emphatic end to the debate. "Bring me a presentable body."
Ikaris grumbled as he went back to the village to find a palatable body, and after much hesitation, he found only Bree's body that met the Vampire's expectations. All the others had long since bled to death when their heads had exploded.
As for the others... they were still alive. So making their condition worse was out of the question.
"There you go." The teenager exclaimed cheerlessly as he laid down the body of the young woman who was still alive and bubbling a few minutes ago.
"Much better. Thanks."
Pulling out a white handkerchief from who knows where, Magnus placed it around his neck like a bib, then began his "tasting." Seeing his ravenous expression and his bloodshot eyes bulging as if he hadn't eaten in years, Ikaris cautiously took three steps back.
The meal was over in a flash. Tossing Bree's desiccated body like a worn-out old handkerchief, Magnus elegantly wiped his red-stained lips with his bib and exhaled in frustration,
"It felt good, but it just whetted my appetite..."
As he said this, he gave a knowing wink to Ikaris, who formally snubbed him.
"Okay, okay. Just kidding." Magnus relented at the boy's listlessness. He was far too cool for his age.
The Vampire babbled and joked a lot, but Ikaris noticed that he wasn't moving. He could barely stand even after drinking blood. Seeing that the teen had seen through his act, the old man dropped the mask and said seriously,
" I am going to start. Once I cast the spell, I will disappear. If I fail, my ultimate wish does not change. Since you have an Elsisn Stele and a Vampire Kitsune by your side, I have even more hope for my idealistic dream. So listen to me carefully.
"My real request is a bit complex, but let's start with the first step. I want you to become the thirteenth Saint of the Forsaken Lands. In fact, I want you to surpass them and break the Curse of Neia that shackles us and dooms us to extinction, but even I don't dare ask such a thing of you. Because it is impossible. Instead, become the thirteenth Saint and the new Sacred Magus of the Confederation. If it is impossible... Destroy it.
"At the same time, expand your empire with the Elsisn Stele and acquire an army strong enough to survive even the Glenrings and the Confederation's fall. Do you understand? If you succeed, what I leave in my clan ring in a moment will tell you what to do next.
"Before I tell you what my gift will be, do you accept? Don't lie, I'll know. I would rather perish peacefully in a few hours than die right now for a coward or an ingrate."
Ikaris frowned, but he didn't need to think for more than a second to answer,
"Having no bearings, I don't know if your request is realistic or not. However, when I do something, I always give it my all. I always use every card I am dealt. I am the absolute best and I do everything I can to keep it that way."
The last sentence was probably too much, but oh well... It came from the heart. Feeling like he needed to make up for it, he briefly recounted,
"I'm used to people being jealous or suspicious of me, and I've already had an unforgettable lesson in that regard. So don't worry Magnus. Getting my kingdom and becoming an invincible sorcerer is aligned with my interests. As for why you want me to take over the Confederation or destroy it otherwise, I can think of several possibilities, but it doesn't scare me. Corruption of the ruling class exists on all worlds."
"Well said!" The Vampire laughed. "Then, let's not waste any more time. Let's begin..."
Magnus conjured an old wooden jewelry box covered in strange blood-red runic inscriptions and motioned for Ikaris to approach.
"Open it."
Fearing that he was about to unlock Pandora's box, the teenager complied, but he pushed the lid off with his foot before immediately diving to the ground, shielding his head as if a grenade had just been pulled.
Embarrassing silence.
"Luckily, there are only two of us." Magnus cringed as he congratulated himself for not being seen in public with the boy. His reputation as a chivalrous Vampire would have been ruined.
Ikarus ignored the old man's sarcasm and looked at the contents of the box warily. What he saw surprised him. It was not what he expected to find.
It wasn't jewelry, money, or even treasure, or maybe it was. He wasn't sure.
In this box there was, in order, a blue scale shimmering like a sapphire, a wolf's fang as white as snow, a purplish eye with multiple hexagonal pupils as polished as a gem, a white feather, another black one, and yet another red one, and lastly a gray pearl as cold as a freezer.
"What is this?" Ikaris finally asked.
"My Blood Legacy." Magnus replied enigmatically before adding, "But also your path to greatness."
