The night in Dream forest was usually the den of ghosts, many evil spirits or the undead. During the night time living animals would generally hid in the depth of their caves or tree holes. If sometimes the demonic energy soared beyond the endurance of the living beings they would naturally retreat into the outermost layer of the forest. In the morning they would return again.
So the Dream Forest was never devoid of noises. In the morning it was filled with the cacophony of living beings and at night the forest would be filled with sudden eerie laughter, sobs, yelling and continuous low whispers. That specific night too, the whole forest, like a psychologically imbalanced person was whispering slowly various unexplainable stories.
But strangely a part of the forest was eerily quite. Although the demonic energy was very dense here, there was not even a single ghost's whispering. The silence was so frightening in this part, that it might give someone the illusion that his ears had stopped functioning.
In this uncomfortably bottomless silence, Scarlet was sitting above a thick tree branch and was trying to find some stars through the little space the dense foliage could provide. Pure demonic energy was continuously merging with her body. At first She was frightened by the dense red ominous aura that simultaneously entered her body without any restrain as soon as night descended. But after a while she noticed that the ominous aura was not at all harmful towards her. On the contrary it strengthened her muscles, bones and purified her blood without her doing any kind of hard work.
Scarlet had read many cultivation novels online before as Aria. In every novel the protagonist had to work his ass off to strengthen himself with a powerful heavenly technique. But she didn't imagine it would be so easy for her to grow strong. Absorbing demonic energy was like a instinct that had been thoroughly engraved in her bloodline. She didn't even need a heavenly or maybe a demonic (in her case) technique to cultivate. Scarlet was too happy. She spoke out loud, " Being a vampiress has it's advantage too.....he..he....well, who doesn't want to be strong?"
She was so immersed in her thoughts that she didn't notice the slight movement behind her. The tree on which Scarlet was taking shelter suddenly grew countless pair of eyes or more specifically speaking, the ivies on them grew eyes. The eyes was glowing green in pitch black darkness. They were slitted in the middle. Their cold unfeeling gazes which were devoid of any warmth, could make the most bravest person's skull go numb in fear even without looking.
Scarlet who was sitting opposite the tree trunk didn't saw these abnormal things but felt several baleful gazes on her. She abruptly stiffened. She might be brave but Scarlet was after all only a seventeen years old high school girl in her previous life. She might have the courage to spend the night alone in a forest, but she absolutely didn't have the courage to put herself as the protagonist of a horror, suspense and thriller movie.
The baleful gazes behind her were becoming stronger and stronger. Scarlet wanted to move her neck to see what were behind but her neck won't move. It was as if her whole body had paralyzed. She could smell that the sweet aroma in the air was intensifying with every passing second. It was making her dizzy.
Suddenly, she felt that something was very slowly crawling around her neck. Scarlet with great difficultly lowered her neck. Her eyes widened in fear to see the cold reptile that was hissing maliciously. It was a snake?!! Her body violently jolted. Scarlet's forever indifferent expression cracked finally. There were horror written all over her face. The demonic energy also became somewhat restless around her.
Scarlet threw the snake with all her might. Her hands were trembling. She didn't fear tiger or lion but all the creatures from reptilian species, even the tiny lizards were feared by her greatly. It was to the point that it was quite abnormal.
As she threw the snake Scarlet unconsciously turned around. And the scene in front of her completely terrorized her. Those seemingly ordinary ivies had come alive and transformed into snakes. Not only on her tree but on every tree in front of her there were thousands of snakes spiralling around, hissing coldly, gazing at her.
Scarlet hurriedly climbed down from the tree. Her whole body was trembling. She started to back away step by step. The snakes also were starting to coil down from the trees and approached her slowly like how a hunter would corner his prey. All of sudden her back was knocked against a tree and Scarlet felt several cold touches on her cold skin that was crawling and slowly tightening their grips. As she turned around she saw the same scene as the front. Snakes!! They were everywhere!! Hundreds, thousands of them!!!
The panic stricken Scarlet screamed as she forcefully removed the snakes on her body. She helplessly looked around to find a escaping route for herself but to her disappointment the devious snakes had blocked her every route of escaping. Scarlet was like a caged bird captured by a trap. Only these traps were made up of snakes.
This was the infamous place known as the ' Snake Valley ' of the Dream forest amongst the Adventurers. This place was marked as a all time danger zone by many famous S ranked adventurers. The snakes here were all undead, demonic beings. At day time they would remain camouflaged like some common ivy. But they exuded a sweet aroma which would stole the consciousness of the living beings that dared to enter their territory. At night these undead snakes would woke up by absorbing the surrounding demonic energy and would devour the unconscious beings. The most frightening thing about them was this creatures could devour everything starting from flesh, bones to the souls of living beings, ghosts and even the undead. Nothing was spared. Those who managed to escape from this valley to tell the tale were generally very few veteran S ranked adventurers who were later traumatized by the horror of the valley and died soon after.
Scarlet who just recently became a vampiress, still contained the fear of human heart. She had long lost her calm facing the greatest fear of her life in such a overwhelming manner. She wanted to go back to her home, to Earth and find solace in her mother's embrace. She wanted to see her brother. She also wanted to meet up with her stupid underlings. She closed her eyes. Her consciousness slowly entered into a deep illusionary space. When she opened her eyes again they were completely blank. The brightness that shined brilliantly was gone. All that remained was nothingness. Her face was indifferent unlike the panic stricken face a few seconds before.
The restless demonic energy around her became tranquil again. It steadily started to enter her body again. The snakes crawled to climb along her leg. This time Scarlet didn't scream or panic. She just stared at those green slitted eyes as more and more snake climbed upon her. She remained still and let them climb. A creepy smile slowly bloomed on her face. Her blank eyes glowed with intense red light. Scarlet exposed her pinkish red tongue and licked her lips. At this time her expression was of a alluring demoness who was staring at her prey.
Some of the snakes had already reached her delicate neck and circled around her to tighten their clutches to suffocate her. Scarlet's smile deepened.
"You are really impatient to die huh?" She chuckled for a bit, then gently touched the scales of the snake that was strangling her. She said softly as if to appease the snake," Don't worry, i will give death to every one of you as you have just delivered yourself to me?Ah.....how could I refuse such generous offer?"
As soon as she finished speaking the snake on her neck started to wither at a rate visible to the naked eyes. If you look carefully you could see a dark red blood sphere flew from the snake and entered Scarlet's body. The snake fell down from her neck. Scarlet smiled happily. Her emotions were showing vividly on her face unlike her indifferent face before although her glowing eyes were still blank. It was as if she had turned into a maniac listening only to her inner demons.
" Hmm....such dense demonic energy. It's really a bliss to eat you. Really yummy. Now let's absorb you all....ah i am drooling." Scarlet started to laugh menacingly.
Soon all the snakes that climbed on her body started to fell on the ground one after another. A large number of red spheres merged in her body vigorously. The surrounding snakes as if perceived the danger in front of them and tried their best to flee. Scarlet smiled lightly. But the cruelty in her voice was very clear.
" Hey where are you going? Don't you want to follow your deceased companions?"
The snakes that were running, "....."
If they could speak they would have screamed in unison," we refuse your kindness"
Scarlet as if understood their plea and said," Oh...you still dare to run? But don't worry I am too kind. I will definitely help you reach your companion."
Scarlet didn't chase them anymore but only raised his hand and the snakes, whichever corner they hid all paused and became withered. Hundreds and thousands of red spheres floated in the air and rushed to enter the only 5 feet 5 inch short body. If Edwyn was present here he would have a complicated expression on his face as he would have muttered," Ah...wife is too overpowered."
Seconds became minutes and minutes became hours. Finally with the first ray of dawn Scarlet finally digested the huge amount of demonic energy. Her body was thoroughly nurtured by it. Her bones had enlarged magnificently. The once five feet five inch tall petite girl has grown to become almost five feet eleven inch tall. Her long black hair shined like the shiniest silk. Her previous pink lips were now blood red. Her unhealthy pale white skin complemented them. Her two round mounds on the chest had enlarged magnificently in full glory. Her previous clothes almost couldn't hold them. Her whole body oozed of sexual appeals. But her eyes as she opened them, were so piercing cold that they could freeze someone with one glace.
Scarlet's blank eyes were now full of determination. She was utterly ashamed for the previous night's panic stricken conducts. She had given herself up to her inner demon's sweet illusions. While absorbing the red spheres if she forcefully didn't suppressed it she would have forever lost her true self to pure desire, lust and violence. Scarlet right then understood that as a being surviving on blood and demonic energy she was always on the very edge of loosing reasons. Thus it was necessary to get rid of any kind of extreme emotions like hatred, jealousy, anger, greed, and most of all love which generally created emotional storms in any race. She couldn't...no she forbid herself to fall in love.
The harmful force that she thought was obstructing her emotions was actually helping her from loosing herself. She sighed in her mind and thought,
" Maybe a little bit of happiness and sadness are okay but from today onwards i vow to obstruct any kind of extreme emotions."
As warm sunlight covered the whole dream forest Scarlet saw the whole Snake Valley was filled with the thousands of snake corpses. Before these undead snakes covered themselves with demonic energy to protect themselves. But at that moment as soon as the light touched them without any demonic energy for protection, their corpses burnt like gasoline. Thus the so called infamous Snake Valley of Dream forest met it's end just for offending one vampiress.