…

The day before the raid of the Pentagon, the Rank 20 Azard was listening to a mental message from one of the Kings under it. The King was the third monster whose territory Night City attacked, the Rank 11 Silver Lycanthrope. The Lycanthrope had seen reports of the Rank 6 humans and vampires destroying Rank 6 monsters in other Kings’ territories but it just assumed such wouldn’t happen in its own territory.

Sadly when the humans and vampires attacked its own Rank 6s were powerless against them. Night City never had a single casualty in all their attacks but his own Rank 6 died in hundreds and thousands. Unlike the other Kings the Lycanthrope didn’t just get angry and vent, it questioned its previous assumption and realized its folly.

It had unknowingly assumed itself to be special but it realized now after its defeat that it was like every other monster, foolish. It sent its subordinates to the territory of the other Kings and paid en-code to them to let its subordinates spy on the humans when they attacked. The other Kings didn’t see the offer as anything but free en-code.

Soon enough the problem of the humans and vampires reached the Supreme King since every King below Rank 13 was suffering from it. None of them had a solution, none of them except the Lycanthrope. The Lycanthrope proposed that they let the problem persist and learn tactics from the humans and vampires by copying them. The Lycanthrope showed the benefit of tactics by having its Rank 6s fight the Rank 6s of a Rank 13 King. The Rank 6s of the Lycanthrope won the battle even if they had lower numbers clearly showing the importance of what it had learned.

The Supreme King agreed to the Lycanthrope’s plan and the tactics they learnt helped them for a while. The humans showed new tactics and they adapted but they couldn’t get over the problem of the Rank 15 and 14 vampires that were killing high Rank monsters which were important resources even to the Azard.

The peak Rank 6 of Night City also posed an unsolvable problem to the monsters as there were no Rank 6s that could match them. The fact that Night City rarely used defensive formations also affected the monsters since they could only learn attack formations hence they couldn’t use their home advantage.

The Azard decided to attack Night City and capture some of them to get more information but it asked the Lycanthrope if it felt this was a good plan first. The Lycanthrope was glad that the Azard was relying on its wisdom since it gave it a higher importance than even the Rank 17 Kings. The Lycanthrope agreed with the Supreme Kings plan and warned the Azard to use enough monsters so that the humans and vampires would have no hope of escape.

The Azard was not a very smart monster but it was extremely strong and lucky that its own reproduction system allowed it to create children that weren’t disobedient to it, similar to spawns. This set it apart from the other Kings whose children ran away or betray them when faced with life threatening danger.

The Azard took its highest Rank children and the horde of the Rank 17 Kings around its territory and traveled toward the exterior of its territory where the humans and vampires frequently attacked. It didn’t care that it was using more power than necessary for the operation since the Lycanthrope had advised it to do this.

Night City was doing a regular raid until Azard arrived. The moment the Azard appeared they surrendered and the Azard was pleased. It would have been a problem if they fought to their death.

Sadly for the Azard the people suddenly disappeared from its senses. The Azard was stunned, it knew that the humans and vampires always disappeared after they were done attacking but they had already tested and realized that Rank 16 monsters with good senses could see through it and attested that they were just camouflaging not disappearing.

The Azard focused it senses and it began to see through the fog of camouflage that covered the platoon it was about to capture. But all of a sudden it the presence of the platoon disappeared completely and was replaced by the presence of the Rank 15 Original Vampire. The vampire had a warm smile on her face, tears running down her cheek and a bloody wrist as she looked at the eyeless head of the Azard.

…

After Mira had told them about the power vacuum around the Pentagon, Charlotte immediately ran toward the platoons. She cast a spell on herself and large bat wings made of blood sprouted from her back. She faced forward and let the wings swiftly carry her toward closest platoon; she didn’t want to look at the wings since she would start to get suicidal thoughts again if she saw it.

She found the first platoon fighting normally against Rank 6 monsters and she realized ‘If the Azard left its territory with its other monsters to fight an external threat then it wouldn’t just leave the Rank 6s to fight us. It is searching for us personally’.

Charlotte faced her palm toward the monsters, cast ‘Blood Clot’ spell and a shower of energy rained on the monsters. When the energy touched the monsters any liquid part of their body crystallized. Few monsters could still move after those the spell hit them due to their unique physiques but they ran away.

Charlotte said “Go to the rendezvous point” and flew toward another platoon. The second platoon she went to was in a completely different situation. They were kneeling down before a four footed monster that was as large as a tank. The monster had a large head with no eyes, nose or mouth, its body was covered in milky white exoskeleton and it had thin long black tail covered in small and thin hairs.

Charlotte recognized its form; it was the Rank 20 Azard. Instantly spread her energy zone over the kneeling platoon and cast the first spell knew since she became a vampire; ‘Blood Camouflage’.

A red mist swiftly seeped from her body and covered the platoon but in the eyes of the monsters the platoon disappeared and in the eyes of the platoon nothing happened. Charlotte said “Go to the rendezvous point” waking the despairing platoon members from their despair.

They picked up their weapons and started running away while the monsters around turned their heads or their sensory organs left and right looking for the platoon. When she heard the opinion of Mira’s contact about how her Magic worked with bonds, she instantly understood.

The spells she unlocked always correlated with memories she remembered but Mira’s contact was wrong about something. Her magic wasn’t blood magic because they were attack type spells but because all the memories she had were stained with blood.

The Azard’s tail stopped moving around as it saw through the illusion her spell cast. The blood camouflage spell didn’t just create an illusion but it also hypnotized people to avoid focusing on whatever she used the spell on. When she got knowledge of how her Magic worked her current spells had improved and she got access to new spells.

But with that knowledge came pain, when she saw that the Azard could see the platoon member and that some other monsters were also seeing through the illusion she knew that the she had to let the spell evolve to its true form.

Charlotte closed her eyes and thought of the bond that gave rise to the Blood Camouflage spell. She remembered her mother covering her in the blood of other dead people to hide her from the monsters that had broken into the building they were hiding in.

She shivered as she did in the memory, lying down in a tub full of blood as her mother filled taking the blood on the floor with a sponge and squeezing it all over her body. Her mother said “Hold your breath” as one of the monsters, a tiny red bat spotted her mother as it flew by and screeched causing other identical bats to swarm toward it and find her mother.

The bats swarmed her mother while she lay in the tub full of blood holding her breath as her mother made noise to distract the bats from noticing Charlotte who was in the tub behind her. The IPs hadn’t been distributed at this time so the bats didn’t get notified of Charlotte’s presence in the tub of blood.

The tub of blood rippled as the blood of her mother joined the blood that hid her from the monsters. The monsters flew away after eating her mother in the blink of an eye, bones, flesh, muscle; nothing was left apart from blood.

Charlotte opened her eyes after reliving the memory and told the platoon members “Hold your breath” as she used her claws to cut her wrist to cast the evolved version of her spell. A pool of blood splashed over the platoon as the blood that dripped from Charlotte’s wrist disappeared into thin air, completely removing them from senses of the monsters while making the monsters focus on Charlotte’s enhanced presence.

Charlotte smiled as tears dropped from her eyes, she was glad that she understood what her mother felt when she died and the realization feeling made her cry… It was love. No regret, no anger, no despair, love was all she saw in her mother’s eyes when she remembered her squeezing blood and pouring it on her.