The Azard frantically swiped its tail left and right, trying to sense the platoon that had just disappeared right under its nose. It trembled in anger as all its methods failed it and it could only sense the extremely noticeable presence of Charlotte who was now closing her eyes again. She didn’t care that a bunch of angry monsters were all around her, if she wanted to survive them her Magic would have to improve.

A memory played out before her; her, her mother and her younger brother where in a mall with a group of about 40 people. The people hadn’t eaten for 5 days, the swarm of small red bats was outside searching for anything that moved to devour. They’re group had been on the run for those 5 days and now that they entered a mall they searched for food.

Their search wasn’t fruitful since another group had passed through the mall and had taken all the necessary things for survival. The group gathered again, the faces of the people in the group were filled with frustration and rage. The adults went away to have a meeting on what they should do leaving the 12 kids alone.

Some minutes later some adults returned from the meeting, Charlotte and her brother, David, were confused as they couldn’t find their mother among them. What they didn’t know was that majority of the adults proposed that they eat the little children since they weren’t strong enough to survive on their own and were a hindrance to them since they needed protection.

Hunger, frustration, fear and death had made the people abandon their morals. They would have eaten corpses but the bats didn’t leave anything but blood behind after they ate so they needed a new solution.

Some of the adults went to the sports section and stayed there for a while, while the other adults watched the children. Charlotte went to one of them and asked “Where’s my mom?” The woman replied “She went to the toilet”.

Charlotte returned to her brother with a look of confusion, why would her mother use the toilet when they hadn’t eaten at all? The adults that went to the sports section returned with sharpened javelins; the previous group that came had taken the knives and other tools that could be used to kill, they could only improvise.

Fear gripped Charlotte as she realized that the adults that stayed with them were surrounding them. She asked the last question in hope that the adults weren’t trying to do what she had in mind “Are you going to hunt the bats?” but no one answered her causing her to tremble in fear.

The adults held down the children since they started screaming for their parents, the 8 adults with the javelins hurried up and stabbed the children in their hearts with the javelins. Screams echoed through the hall of the mall as humans degenerated to animals that only cared about survival.

The bats were far from deaf and a swarm of them started approaching the mall causing the adults to run away with the corpses of the children they had killed hanging on the javelins. David was one of them. Charlotte screamed in rage as she followed the man that was carrying her brother’s corpse as it hung on his javelin. She remembered his face; it was twisted in pain with tears streaming down his eyes, snot dripping from his nose, blood running from his mouth.

Charlotte opened her eyes to a psychic message that came from a monster that was an exact replica of a werewolf that was 10 foot tall and had silver tipped black fur. The psychic message said ‘Show us where the people are, we won’t kill you, you can serve the Supreme King, he will treat you well if you teach us.’

Charlotte looked around her at the host of angry monsters and said ‘Blood Magic: Horror Spikes’. A forest of blackish red spikes grew from the ground around Charlotte and extended toward the monsters. The Rank 16 monsters closest to Charlotte stood their ground and used whatever means to block the spikes.

They were partially successful as many of the spikes broke on encountering their defense but they all suddenly wailed in pain and started thrashing around. The other monsters were confused. Horror Spikes was the new form of Blood Spikes, one of the spells Charlotte got after hearing Jade’s advice.

The Horror Spikes unlike the Blood Spikes didn’t just do physical damage, it also made any being they hit to feel immense pain originating from different parts of their bodies. What made it even more dreadful was that when any part of the body was pierced by the spikes, the spikes would consume the energy and blood of the creature and grow a tree of spikes in the body of the monsters that aimed at the vital organs of the creature’s body. This caused the pain inducing effect of the spikes to increase as the spikes grew bigger creating vicious cycle.

The Azard was stopped any attempt at diplomacy on seeing the dying Rank 16s. It clearly saw that Charlotte was Rank 15 but could kill Rank 16s which scared the Azard greatly; it viewed Charlotte as a threat to be removed.

The exoskeleton on the large head of the Azard morphed like a liquid substance and formed hundreds of long flexible blade like tentacles. The tentacles positioned themselves, aiming toward Charlotte who smiled wickedly as she thought ‘Why do I get so happy when they suffer so much? They even tried to talk but I couldn’t resist the urge to see them scream… How am I different from a monster?’

The tentacles shot toward Charlotte, they vanished for a moment before reappearing again and stabbing the area around Charlotte with a loud boom… but she wasn’t there. Only a few red bats were impaled by the blade tentacles while a swarm of thousands of bats, identical to the ones in Charlotte’s memories, swirled around the tentacles. The Azard was confused as its IP told it that the swarm of bats was one Rank 16 Original Vampire but it didn’t think about it too much and started swinging its blade tentacles wildly at the dispersing swarm of bats.

The battle swiftly descended into chaos as the other monsters sent long range attacks at the bats while the spikes extended from the corpses of the Rank 16s towards all the other monsters. The spikes way were stronger after absorbing so much blood and energy and the monsters weren’t finding them easy to dodge as the extended from the ground and shot toward any monster in the air. A single scratch was enough for the spikes to cause mind numbing pain to any monster putting them in the vicious cycle of torturous death.

The only saving grace for the monsters was the fact that the Azard and its children were focused on destroying the spikes which helped them survive Charlotte’s onslaught. The Rank 20 Azard could easily destroy all the spikes and bats in one attack but it would kill a lot of the other monsters if it did that. It could only grit its nonexistent teeth and deal with the attacks slowly while the other monsters retreated.

The spikes started liquefying, changing shape, merging, splitting and turning solid to hit the dodging monsters and to recycle themselves after being destroyed as Charlotte’s control grew. Fear gripped the hearts of the monsters as they frantically attacked the bats that were supposed to be Charlotte; some of them hit their allies in an effort to get the bats that were everywhere now.

The bats all screeched at the same time causing the fear in the retreating monsters to be amplified causing them to freeze in fear, creating a moment of silence. Then the spikes ravaged all the affected monsters causing the momentary silence to dissipate under the intense screams of the monsters. Some of the monsters didn’t even have pain receptors but they still felt pain because the spikes weren’t affecting their receptors but their minds putting the foreign feeling of pain in them.

A bright white light shined on the horizon, its intensity was highest in the direction of the Azards territory. After some seconds and intense earthquake shook the whole state, dread filled the Azard as it looked at the light. It thought ‘My children’.