It was possible that when we got to the barrier that separated the blue district from the black district, we might come up in a different place than where Teluna and I killed that giant stone rat the first time. But Vampires, have a really good sense of direction, and our memories are good too, so finding this place again was not that much of a problem.
When we arrived, standing over the hill that served as the boundary between both districts, I heard Magellan, Kodak and Gus take in sharp breaths as a wonder of the pit they've never seen before was spread out in front of them. Unlike the last time where I needed the light from my rune to be able to see clearly and fight, the darkness of the black district was a bright as day to me. The stone rats of varying sizes and constitutions that littered the landscape was so clear to our perception, it was quite impossible for us to escape the sheer horror of what we're about to do.
They were every where, but the crux of the matter was that, the stone rats were not the only monsters that thrived within this darkness. I could see stone dogs of some sort, and a kind of snake that had veins of lava winding through it's serpentine body. It was a peculiar sight, and this was just how far my eyes could see, as for my companions who could see better than me due to their higher ranks, I could only imagine what sort of monsters they were seeing.
The monsters seems to be arranged in a particular way, the rats lived on the rim, they were probably the weaker faction here, and next came the stone dogs, and then the lava snakes. Those dogs were actually quite familiar as I've seen some of them standing guard at the hub. They were sometimes used by the guards whenever they had routine patrols around the district. I did not need to think too much to know dogs were a whole lot stronger than rats, but the rats on their own seem to outnumber every monster I have seen so far.
There were a few towers spread out at the rim, unlike the other districts, it seems as if the black district has an extreme lack of towers. Of all the towers at the rim, only one was occupied by the rats, the rest were rather untouched, except for the glaring fact that they were as black as night and seemed to be made not of earth, but a kind of obsidian ore. The tower that was occupied by the rats, had many holes bored in and out of its structure, I was sure that those holes were probably tunnels, and all tunnels definitely lead somewhere right?
"Shall we begin?" I turned and asked my companions. Teluna looked up at me and said
"I thought you would never ask." Then his entire body faded into a huge cloud of darkness and crashed into the ranks of stone rats that scurried in front of their tower, as if they were some sort of guard.
I turned to the others and shrugged my shoulders, before stepping through the barrier and into the black district. This was a combat exercise, and the people training were vampires, creatures with fearsome strength, speed and regeneration. I think I realized that I didn't ring this guys here to train them, I brought them here for a massacre. There was a whoosh at my side as Gus and Kodak shot past me and jumped into the fray, Magellan was the eldest amongst us all, he was a little bit more reserved in his actions than the rest of us who were practically all still teenagers, or preteens in the case of Gus and Teluna.
Teluna had a physical strength that could rival all of ours combined, but he had taken our advice in learning how to fight. Every strike he made, whether with his fist, or the gleaming dagger in his hand coated with darkness, he went for a vital spot, and he made sure those rats were killed in one hit. The stone rats here we're very unlike the ones from my dungeon, they were ten times as big, and ten times a ferocious with their fang filled mouths. With no one to teach him how to really fight like an assassin, Teluna has been left to rely on his wits, and to be honest he was doing a lot better than I expected.
Gus was weird, he was not attacking, rather he was sitting right in the middle of a group of stone rats watching as four of their own tore into the companions with reckless abandon. Gus was controlling them to fight amongst themselves, and since his control over telepathy was not that great, he could only control a small amount of them. But from the look of things, that was enough.
With Gus controlling their minds, they could fight and move not like rats, bur rather like vampires. Their animalistic nature would be subdued, and they would fight with more finesse, relying completely on Gus's instinct and skill. If he could control more of those rats, then he wouldn't have bothered as he would have just let them swarm each other and fight until they were all dead and in pieces.
Magellan style of fighting was a little eccentric and horrifying. He was using the blood of the stone rats(which to be honest I don't remember them having.) To fight. He was a Shadower like Teluna, but he was using the abilities of a blood child to contend with the stone rats. But I was not surprised, at a new rank you get new abilities, the old ones become strengthened.
I watched as Magellan pulled his arms back, and drops of blood rose up from all the corpses on the ground, looking at those drops of blood as they floated around him, made me some what eager to advance in rank. It was a beautiful sight, then Magellan pushed his hand forward, and all those tiny drops of blood turned to a shower of bullets that poked holes into the bodies of a rapidly approaching horde of stone rats. It was quite interesting to watch all of them fall down one by one as they were pelted by the rain of bullet like blood.
Kodak was also using blood to fight, but in a rather brutal way. There was a massive seven foot tall hammer in his hand, and every time he smashed that hammer on a stone rat, it grew in the size. Kodak took three steps forward and leaped up into the air, easily achieving a height of thirty feet, before angling his body as he brought the hammer smashing down right in the middle of a clustered group of stone rats.
"BOOOOM!"
The sound from the hammers impact shook me to my bones as a cloud of dust was raised that obscured much of Kodak's vicinity. When it dissipated, a crater twenty feet in diameter and a meter and a half deep had appeared, and right in the middle of that crater was a pool of blood and pieces of the smashed bodies of the stone rats. Kodak was right in the middle of it the crater, completely rouser and drenched in their blood. He took a handful of their blood and fought his cupped hand to his lips and he drank a mouthful. Then he looked up at me with his blood stained fangs and piercing blue eyes.
"The blood is actually good. There's an earthen flavor to it, that's quite different from what we've had before. You should try it."
Then he turned around to continue his massacre and blood drinking spree.
It was good that he turned around, the horrified look on my face would have been seen by him otherwise. It was now I really understood why revenants and bloodchilds were the most hated and watched out for vampire ranks.
Everywhere we go, there's bound to be a rain of blood, due to revenants and their insatiable blood lust, and a bloodchilds extreme use of blood to power their abilities. No matter which way you looked at, such acts will only stress the fact that vampires are nothing more than monsters and killers. That wouldn't be a lie, but I would like to believe that there's a better way, and that we're a very different people now than before.
Everyone else seemed to be rather busy with their slaughter, so I had to get on with mine. After all it wouldn't do for the leader to be left behind by his followers. I took a deep breath, and let my soul energy flow from deep within me, letting it pour out of my palms as copious plumes of blue thick fog, and then I pushed it forward straight into the entrance of the tower before us.
I kept on pushing making sure that as much stone rats as possible inhaled my soul energy as they found purchase within their body. I was giving everything I had, every ounce of soul energy in my body. This was the first time I ever tried something like this, and my action was s shocking that Teluna and the others had to pause what they were doing to look at me since my soul energy had also moved towards their corner.
Then the earth began to rumble, as a cacophony of shrieks and squeaks came from within the interior of the tower, I had no idea how far in my soul energy had went, but it was obvious that the multitudes of stone rats, spilling out from multiple entrances of their tower like water from a cup were all disturbed by the invasion of the blue fog that was my soul energy.
The others were shocked as they all came to stand behind me, wary of the fact that the monsters they were killing had just increased in size by about a hundred times. There was no way they could handle this much rats, they would be swarmed and bitten to pieces in seconds.
"My lord Kael, are you sure you know what you're doing? We can't handle this much monsters.". Magellan said as he stood behind me.
I didn't answer him but I turned enough to let him see the crazy grin on my face as I kept on pushing my soul energy out, completely unbothered by the legion of stone rats that were crawling over each other to come and get a bit out of our skins. I wanted to explain what I was doing, but then I thought how about a little test for this group of people. So I turned to Teluna, Gus, Kodak and Magellan and looked each of them in the eye and said.
"if you trust me, then show me if you're courageous enough to die with or for me."
Their eyes widened as what I just said, but their reactions were immediate and shocking to me. Gus nodded his head and led Kodak past my out stretched hands that was still spewing out my soul energy, they took a spot in front of me, preparing to face the horde of stone rats. Magellan followed, and Teluna only did so after a few moments of hesitation, but not before telling me.
"if I die, I'm going to kill you."
Apart from Teluna there was no hesitation, they were really ready to die for me. Imagining this outcome and seeing it was two very different things. I didn't really think they would choose to stand in front of me like that, I was flustered and didn't know how to answer them. But I was touched, maybe this was not the proper way to test their loyalty, even at this point in time I should not even be worried about such a thing, but I did, and it left me with a happy feeling that I couldn't explain.
I turned my gaze to the rapidly approaching legion of earth attributed rodents, they were barely four meters away from the line Gus and the others had formed before me, before I pushed out my palm and brought every single rat to a screeching halt.
I was connected to every facet of my soul energy, and with my constant unsealing sessions, my control had reached a whole other level. But controlling hundreds if not thousands of stone rats at the same time was quite exhausting, and I could feel my hands, head and back beginning to ache from the strain. Teluna and he others turned to me, mouth opened wide at the sight in front of them.
Then an idea came to me. Since soul energy was used to weave, then was it possible to actually weave a rune into existence anywhere my soul energy was, it was a long shot, but I really wanted to try it. I closed my eyes, and drew upon the true power and capabilities of my soul, then I snapped them open, staring at the rat horde with a gaze so intense I was sure they will forever remember it till their next life. Then I whispered.
"BREAK!"
The power of my soul rune was more than I would have ever expected, as suddenly there were shrieks rending the air, singing of their terror and pain as their bones were broken, and they crumbled to dust. And as they all fell to the power of my soul rune, a thunder cloud suddenly came into existence above my head, rolling, and sparkling with power and anger. Before I could say anything else, a massive thunderbolt fell straight down from the cloud, directly for my face.
And just before it hit me, I realized the huge mistake I had just made. A mass weaving of such magnitude, was sure to get me the attention of nature for breaking it laws, and the massive thunderbolt fifteen centimejters away from my face was the result of natures backlash. 'fuck! I think I just killed myself'
"BRAAAAACCCCCKKKKRRRRRAAAAAMMMMM!!!, BOOOOOOOMMMM!"