Chapter 621: A week of progress and events.
A week passed.
That week, a few things happened in Victor's group, and although they were few, they were very relevant.
Starting with Scathach and Victor, the two became practically inseparable this week. [To the wild jealousy and envy of the girls. Even if they knew why Scathach basically monopolized Victor, that doesn't mean they liked it.]
All they did that week was: train, drink each other's blood, train again, and practice their 'night battles'.
Due to the intense training and drinking of each other's blood, an uncontrollable lust grew in both of them. If they weren't Vampires, they would easily be confused as being some kind of Bunny.
Whenever a workout was over, Scathach would pull Victor into the bedroom and straddle him like a thirsty woman.
When it wasn't Scathach who did it, it was Victor who couldn't bear it.
It was obvious that the girls, especially Aphrodite, were very jealous.
But in the end, this routine proved to be quite effective. When Victor and Scathach finished training a week later, the man could perfectly control his body, just as he had controlled it before going through this 'rebirth'.
Which meant he could fully access his powers in his Base Form and use them at full throttle.
Unfortunately, Victor still hadn't been able to use his Vampire Count Transformations like before, and there was one simple reason for that.
The Energy he used now was much more potent than before.
It sounded silly, but it was understandable if you considered that the Energy Victor used in his Vampire Count Form was 100x greater than before he went through this rebirth.
For some reason, when Victor entered his Vampire Count Form, his body's 'Senjutsu' Energy mixed together, and its scale of power became absurd.
But thanks to that, they discovered something... Victor basically had an insane amount of Energy being produced in his body.
They finally understood the meaning of 'an Energy that feeds an entire planet'.
Proof of this fact was that... Victor no longer needed to drink blood.
In fact, he didn't even feel bloodlust anymore.
His body's Energy kept his body at 100% all the time.
He had become a living nuclear reactor now.
It was worth mentioning that Scathach was a little jealous of Victor's 'perks'. The potential that this Energy in Victor's body had was absurd, and even Scathach herself admitted that if Victor completely controlled the Energy that Roxanne was producing and channeling into his body, he would become much stronger than her by an absurd margin.
And that knowledge filled the older woman with a single emotion…excitement.
The purest, most genuine excitement; she felt like she was a kid again and had to focus once more on training.
The Scarlett sisters had never seen their mother so happy before. She always walked around with a smile on her face, and it wasn't a bloodthirsty smile but one of pure happiness.
For a few moments, the daughters thought their mother had been replaced by someone else.
Victor wasn't the only one who improved this week; Scathach was improving at an insane pace herself.
Her Base Form was rapidly evolving and getting stronger than before. Not only that, her own Bloodline was being 'refined', and she felt that her 'Power' output had grown much higher as well, which was insane considering her level of power.
There were two reasons for the evolution of Scathach.
The first was that Victor and Scathach fought to the death constantly. They never held back, and they both had confidence in themselves and their abilities, that no matter what damage, their bodies would heal as they abused the regeneration of a Vampire.
The second reason was the intense sex sessions and drinking of each other's blood.
Victor's body was producing high-quality Energy, and all his blood was being bathed in this Energy, meaning his blood became even more delicious along with his seed.
As the Ancient Sages said, eat well, train diligently, and fight battles with all your might. These are the ingredients for growing in strength.
And believe me... Scathach 'ate' very well this week. Scathach's two 'mouths' were wholly filled by Victor's liquids.
Putting all these factors together, in just one week, her body stopped being broken by Victor's punches, with his blows only leaving bruises in their wake. Furthermore, through the damage done to her body, her regeneration also became more potent.
Although that only happened when Victor didn't use his strength 'properly'.
By the time Victor started using Martial Arts and correctly applying all of his strength as taught by Scathach, the damage done was still the same as it had been at the start of their fight.
In comparison, Scathach never managed to damage Victor's body significantly, much to her frustration.
Scathach's current goal was to improve her Base Form enough to cripple Victor's body.
And when Victor heard about it, he grinned like a fool for a long time. It was good to know that his 'target' was chasing after him too.
Yes, the couple had a lot of fun this week.
Compared to them, the Snow Clan experienced one of the most hectic and simultaneously calm weeks ever.
The calm part was because the flow of people coming to the Snow Clan's new city stopped completely. [To the great relief of all members of the Snow Clan and Violet and Agnes herself.]
The hectic part was because the Vampire King was visiting the city and appearing publicly to see the haven.
Notably, on that day, all members of the Snow Clan and even the Fulger Clan were wholly occupied.
That day, Sasha looked at the Scarlett sisters with eyes that seemed to pierce the girls' bodies.
The reason for this was that due to Scathach's action of abandoning the territory, she was only a Vampire Count in name and didn't really have much responsibility.
And that went for her daughters too.
Therefore, the four sisters did nothing to help and only gave their silent support, much to the Fulger and Snow clan's annoyance.
A secret shared only by the Scarlett sisters was that... They really weren't just procrastinating.
Seeing their mother and Victor improve was like a slap in the face from reality for the girls.
If Scathach, an insanely strong woman, could still get stronger, why couldn't they too? Why should they wait for their next strength boost? Would they be Scathach-worthy daughters if they just stood idly by while their mother evolved further?
Of course not! They would not accept this!
Carrying these feelings in their hearts, Ruby, Siena, Lacus, and Pepper did something... They started training, too, a training they did when their mother trained them together.
They battled until someone was seriously injured; just like Victor and Scathach, they focused on improving their 'basics'.
Siena had the raw Ice Power due to Victor's training. She managed to balance her other attributes as well, but she still wasn't satisfied. She had room for improvement, and that's what she did. She focused on improving her weak points that were painfully obvious.
Her defense.
Lacus was fast and had a good defense but lacked explosive power, so she worked on improving ways to kill faster. She was a born Assassin, and her Powers helped with that, so she asked Kaguya for help, a woman who was a Master of this kind of subject.
Even though her mother had been training her in this Art, she wanted an outside perspective, and due to Kaguya's recent increase in power, Lacus thought she was a good candidate, not to mention the fact that her Clan specialized in this type of Art.
Pepper had explosive power. Those cute little fists had abnormal strength, but her speed was shit, and even though it improved, it still wasn't good enough. So, that's what she trained; she also trained her power to use Water more creatively.
Due to being a hardcore Otaku, she had many ideas to improve her power, and she even archived those references to try in the future; she just didn't in the past because...Well, she was lazy.
Ruby was the most balanced of all. She was the strongest for the simple reason that she spent one year and six months training with Victor in the Human World, so her Base was strengthened entirely.
But... Ruby had a problem; her power output was very slow.
Victor and her mother could create an entire damn monument with just a snap of their finger while she needed to concentrate a lot on everything because she had to separate her Water and Ice powers.
She thought it was unfair to compare herself to those two monsters... But the moment that thought crossed her mind, she quickly shook her head and slapped herself across the face.
'Victor never made excuses for his training. If he had an idea of how to train, he would go ahead even if it hurt him.' Ruby didn't want to make excuses anymore. She was said to be the woman who inherited Scathach's monstrous talent and power.
Not to mention she had a complimentary Bloodline that matched her Ice perfectly.
Ruby started training to use the Power of Water and Ice simultaneously. She didn't want to 'separate' the attacks or use them separately.
She wanted to use both at the same time.
... And she did it... After just two days in hyperfocus, using all her brain and training her body.
A result that caught the sisters completely unprepared when they went to fight that day.
The method Ruby came up with may as well be called 'Flow', a subdivision of her mother's own techniques.
Using the image of a river as an example, she used the Power of Water to circulate that Power throughout her body and created a flow of Energy that she was ready to use at any time.
She used what she observed of her Husband as a reference. She covered her entire body with her 'Energy' and maintained that state at 100%.
Which was ridiculously difficult to do and required ridiculous control of her own Powers, but she managed... Simply because her Powers complemented each other well, and because of that, no Energy was lost when she used her Power in her body constantly.
Ruby took another step to alter her mother's Martial Art and adapt it for herself.
Thanks to this training, Ruby had a pleasant surprise... Her Vampire Count Form became much easier to control, and she didn't know the exact reason for that. But what she did know was that it was due to the training to use the Power of her Lineages more 'intelligently'.
Not only were the Scarlett sisters training, Leona, Edward, Mizuki, Liena, and even the Maids were training this past week.
For the reasons stated earlier, the only ones who couldn't train thoroughly were Agnes, Violet, Natashia, and Sasha.
Something else happened too, but it wasn't with Victor's group; it was in the Nordic Pantheon.
The Bifrost, the device that connected the Realms of the Norse Pantheon, was destroyed, and Asgard became inaccessible, as well as the other Realms of the Pantheon.
When Aphrodite received this news from Freya, she was utterly shocked. The reason for this was that the Bifrost was not a simple Artifact; it was an Artifact with the 'Concept' of Travel. The Artifact itself had a Divinity that was directly linked to the Pantheon, and in theory, it should've been possible to destroy the Bifrost.
After getting over the shock, Aphrodite saw an opportunity in this event. After all, the entire Pantheon was closed off due to this event. What if someone showed up and offered 'travel services' in exchange for rewards?
Aphrodite could smell the scent of a delicious business opportunity, and like an opportunistic Goddess, she quickly called a meeting to discuss the matter.
But unfortunately, the meeting had to be postponed because of another piece of news that Aphrodite heard, this time coming from Mount Olympus.
Typhon was released and was, at that moment, recovering in Tartarus, but the invasion of this monster was inevitable.
This news came through a messenger from Persephone, who was operating in the Greek Underworld on a minimal basis.
This news made Aphrodite ignore the business opportunity [for now] and rushed her godly ass to the Temples of Hestia, the Goddess of the Home, Demeter, the Goddess of Agriculture, and Nike, the Goddess of Victory.
The reason for her visits? To grant refuge to the three women in Nightingale.
And that's how the week ended, with Victor and Scathach leaving their training and getting the news of everything that happened.
Coincidentally, he also received the weekly report for his parents.
And just as he expected, Anna was evolving like an eagle that finally learned to fly. The result of her report was that she had great potential.
In contrast, his father's report was...surprisingly good.
Due to the lecture he received from Victor, the man seemed to gain some seriousness, and Oda's act of spanking his ass also helped a lot, so he was progressing very well in his mindset.
But in terms of power development... That was a different matter. He was very 'slow', at least compared to Anna, but he was far above the standards of normal Noble Vampires.
Victor wasn't upset about that. On the contrary, he felt happy and knew that people evolved at different paces; some developed quickly at first and then faced a plateau.
While some developed slowly but consistently.
Victor was abnormal for constantly evolving rapidly without stopping… Although these were also the results of his continuous efforts always to seek strength.
"I'll await next week's report, dismissed."
"...." Oda and Hilda bowed respectfully, then quickly disappeared at high speed.
"They are doing well, huh," Scathach spoke.
"Yeah, although my mom is more of a natural about it."
"Well, you had to have gotten your talent from somewhere, not just your Progenitor's blood."
"And everyone knows that those Vampires who are most honest with themselves evolve the fastest." Scathach smiled softly.
Victor smiled with the woman and said, "Indeed, I assume I was like that too?"
"Yes. Due to your goal of chasing after me, you've gotten a lot stronger."
"Heh~? I didn't see you complaining about me running after you last night."
"Who said I was complaining?" She smiled sensually and added, "I only decided to train you because I saw the raw potential in you. The rest was a result of our interactions."
"Hmm~" Victor gently took Scathach's hand and pulled her into a kiss.
"Who knew we would end up like this, huh."
"Indeed..." Scathach smiled lovingly as she returned his kiss, and she squirmed a little when she felt her ass being grabbed by Victor.
"Don't get cocky." She smacked his hand, "You haven't completely beaten me yet."
Victor just chuckled in amusement. He liked her attempts at 'playing hard to get'.
"…That day is even closer than you might think."
"Fufufu, my foolish disciple, you are not the only one getting stronger; you need to work harder to surpass me. You have many training sessions and tortures that you have to go through with me yet."
"… That feels more like a reward for me~."
Scathach was delighted that Victor accepted her 'tendencies' so easily; he was the only one able to say that he enjoyed training with her.
She was painfully aware that other Beings could not stand her spartan training.
Difficult was not enough of an adjective to describe her training.
The words hardcore masochism were more appropriate to classify her training, and few Beings liked to train by 'breaking' their bodies in every possible way.
Squeezing Scathach tighter and moving closer so she could hear his voice in her ears, he spoke in an obsessive, sadistic tone:
"Don't stop training. Don't stop evolving. Do not wait for me. Keep getting stronger." He licked her ear, and the act sent shivers down her spine.
"Because I guarantee you, Scathach…." Victor grinned and turned away from the woman who was breathing heavily with hot air coming out of her mouth and a flush of excitement on her face.
"That, if you wait, I will be close to reaching you again." He turned and started to walk away.
Blood-red eyes stared at Victor's back for longer than she would have liked. Only when he was out of her sight did Scathach come back to herself and look down:
"Fuck, that was very exciting." She urgently needed to change her panties.
'Damn bastard, he knows where to scratch my itches, and it's even better because I know he's completely honest.' The red-haired warrior smirked widely with a sadistic smile and then disappeared in a flash of red.
.....
