Chapter 12

As the two opposing parties approached each other, it was clear that there was a difference in power between them. Lyvia seemed to have a flexible and toned body while she adapted a martial art stance, Grey immediately created a water barrier around Lyvia that protected her, and Orthrus quickly summoned one of his smaller creatures while applying pressure with his soul magic.

As the trio were preparing, so was the large creature. The head in the middle was applying enhancement magic to the body and had started utilising its aura, while both the head on the right and left were preparing their own respective magic. They started with appraising the creature, the results shocked both Grey and Lyvia.

Three headed Chimera, level 157

This chimera was the product of a failed experiment of a novice chimeramancer. The novice was quickly eaten and the chimera roamed free, killing anyone in its wake. The creature gains stat increases from all three heads and has affinities towards three kinds of magic, approach with caution as it is quite powerful.

They had not expected the chimera to be this powerful, and knew that this would be an uphill battle.

The head on the left was preparing a large fireball, it seemed to be gathering flames from its own body as the fireball was first created with mana and then supplemented with the fire from its body.

The head on the right had created multiple ice shard that rotated around it, ready to fire at any moment. It was still creating more, they seemed to originate from its mouth as it gathered the mana around its maw, created the ice shard, and then let them float in a circle with its head at the centre.

The three heads had become weirdly attached to Daelyn. They had seen what he was, they had caused him to form his core, and they had helped him survive. They had seen that he was like them, an abomination in the eyes of others, something that shouldn’t be. They had seen his innocence be taken advantage of by something like them, but they still rescued him, they still saved him from everything they had caused, and more. They had done this simply out of relating, they had felt the rejection from their own species as they saw what they had become. They had seen the behaviour of humans, and they knew what would happen to the little creature. They would view him as an abomination worse than them, they would view him as a lesser being, something that only existed because of someone else’s sins.

They had never seen past that with the large creature, and they would not see past that with the small creature. With their primal urges suppressed, they realized what this small creature meant to them, it meant a future like theirs. For them it meant the urge to grow powerful, to rise above others and show them his true nature, to surmount any obstacle in his path thrown up by others.

The small creature might be the first thing they agreed upon, it must be protected so that it may grow strong, stronger than them. The three presences had come to see Daelyn as their pup, as their child, and they would do anything to protect him.

On the other side stood the trio of two dark elves and a sun elf. They viewed the large creature as a threat to Daelyn, and rushed into battle without hesitation. They wanted to protect him from any threat, they wanted to give him a home he could return to, a teacher he could learn from, a parent that loved him, and a friend he could confide in. They wanted to do all of this, despite their weak connection to him.

Grey and Lyvia may be his parents in name, but they were not his real parents. They might have only picked up Daelyn because of the birth of their stillborn child, but they had come to love him over the span of three years. They had come to terms with their grief, and saw Daelyn for the one thing he was to them, their son. They knew about his nature, but they also knew about his quirks, personality, and his adorable smile. They would spend afternoons playing, nights reading, and mornings teaching him. They may not be his biological parents, but they had raised him for the last three years, they accepted him despite his nature, they loved him.

While both Grey and Lyvia fought for Daelyn out of love, Orthrus fought out of regret and self-hate. He knew just like the large creature that Daelyn would suffer at the hands of others just like he had, he knew they would reject them and hunt him down, and he knew what would happen if Daelyn was not strong enough to resist them. He had made the mistake of being unable to resist them, and it cost him dearly. If he looked at the small family of three, he couldn’t help but remember his past. He would help Daelyn to not make the same mistake he did, he would protect this family, for he does not wish on others what happened to him.

As the two parties were about to fling themselves at each other, cast their magic, smash the other’s bones, flail the other’s skin, and devour the other’s flesh. Daelyn stood there, in the midst of it. He could feel the magical energies gathering, inside and outside the bodies of his loved ones. He felt their hostility towards each other, and he understood that they all wanted to protect him from danger.

As he seemed to be the only one in the room to understand this, he was helpless. He could not save his benefactors from each other, he could not save his parents and Orthrus from the creature, and he could not save the creature from his parents and Orthrus. He felt helpless, he had been in constant pain since he had entered this dungeon, he had gained great power through his pain, but still he felt helpless. He was so absorbed by his goal of becoming powerful, and still he could do nothing. He could only lament in self-hate and anger as he realized his helplessness.

He hated it, he hated himself, he hated his weakness, he hated the fact that the people that were favourable to him were fighting. He wanted it to stop, he gathered every ounce of his will. He directed everything in his body to one cry of anguish, one cry to notify the others of his pain and helplessness. He felt the energy filled blood stir up inside of him as he put everything he had into this scream, his heart pumped with more and more vigour as the blood in his body started to rile up, the blood seemed to be an army, ready for battle. It listened to Daelyn’s command, and as he screamed, it screamed a battle cry.

As Daelyn’s mouth slowly opened, no sound escaped from it. Instead, his blood filled with magical power, did. A vein in his body opened from a moment, letting the filled with energy blood escape from it, and it substituted for Daelyn’s scream. Instead of the scream of a small child, a cloud of magical power amplified by his own blood was used to permeate the air and and fill the surrounding space with his own energy. The scream that was released was one from the natures of his magic, one of blood and death. The screams of dozens upon dozens of tortured souls seemed to be released, overwhelming anyone’s senses inside of the domain.

As the air was permeated with a combination of blood and dark mana, the pure mana was cast out. The space became a domain made out of Daelyn’s personal mana, and as the pure mana was pushed out, so were the spells that used it.

As Daelyn released the scream, everyone inside the room was stunned and could not move for a second, as their senses were overwhelmed by the hellish screams. They were perplexed at their inability to finish their spells and the horrific sounds that came from the child, while Grey and Lyvia and two of the heads of the large creature were perplexed by the disappearance of the pure mana, both Orthrus and the domineering head knew what this was.

Orthrus had seen this before, this was auramancy. This was a kind of magic exclusive to dark mages, the magic used the casters own mana to fill up the air with a high density field of dark mana. This made it virtually impossible to cast spells inside the space for pure mana mages and very hard for dark mages. The pure mana mages simply had no mana besides their own inside of the field, and if they tried to shoot it out, the mana would be quickly dispersed by the present and dominant dark mana. Auramancy may be powerful, but it does take quite a bit of finesse and can be overpowered if the mage is met with more mana.

However, Orthrus was shocked at Daelyn’s display of this magic. He knew from experience that it would normally take several months to create even the most basic aura, but Daelyn just made one without experience. Even more surprising, he added a powerful effect to it. This was only reserved for mages who put a lot of work into auramancy, and this type was one of the more advanced ones. And the aura itself was extremely well made. The aura seemed to use all the energy it received as efficiently as possible.

The dominating head was not so much focused on the aura, as it was on the pulse that seemed to permeate it. He felt a pulse in the aura, he felt the energies permeating the area move with the pulse, propelled through streams carved into the aura. The dominating head was fascinated by this, the pulse was not an extension of the small creature’s will, it was an extension of the small creature’s body.

The aura had veins, pumping with energy. The aura was working on the heart of the small creature, using the heart to pump energy throughout the air, and not waste anything in the process.

Both the domineering presence and Orthrus had never seen anything like this, they looked at Daelyn with wonder in their eyes as they could only think of the power he had. They could only imagine what he could do with this kind of aura in the future, until they were both interrupted by a notification.

You are under the influence of the [Aura of tortured screams]

You have resisted the stun effect

You have resisted the daze status

You have failed to resist the screams

As only Orthrus and the dominating head were able to resist the effects of the aura, they eyed each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.

Orthrus had summoned one of his creations, and had prepared a soul suppressing spell, but he knew that it would be hard fought. The monster he had summoned was a cockroach like monster with large scythes for hands. This monster was originally an enlarged cockroach, it was the strongest of an infestation of cockroaches in the sewers of a medium-sized kingdom’s capital. The cockroach normally used its mass or its mandibles to fight, but Orthrus saw a flaw in this. The cockroach may have good resilience and a hard shell, it wouldn’t be able to pierce or damage shells of similar or higher defence with those mandibles. As such, Orthrus placed the scythes of another species of enlarged grasshoppers at the front of its body, the tail of a species of large scorpions at the end of its body, and let it battle a large amount of other monsters, both of Orthrus’ creation and that of nature’s.

While the cockroach was quite large, 1,5 metres from head to tail and about 30 centimetres high, it was still dwarfed by the Cerberus-like creature. It had some form of conscience, but that did not incite it to run. It incited exactly the opposite, it knew that if it would be able to kill this monster, it would become stronger, it knew that its master would be pleased if he did this. It knew that it would grow from killing it, but it also knew that it would be close to impossible to kill it.

The Cerberus-like creature quickly moved towards Daelyn before any of the others could, despite the hellish screams , it pushed on. It wanted to reach Daelyn to make sure that he was okay, it would not let the three elves harm him.

Orthrus reacted as quickly as he sent his monster towards the Cerberus chimera, he himself cast his soul magic and tried to suppress or at least weaken the dark wolf. The large cockroach and the Cerberus circled each other and gazed at each other with appraising looks. The Cerberus might be powerful, but it does not have the proficiency the cockroach had with its body, due to a large amount of time spend in the cages and the bickering heads.

Even now the heads were in disagreement. One wanted to charge in and devour the cockroach, another one wanted to focus on the mage, and the domineering presence was too preoccupied with the monster in front of them to listen to them. They continued their bickering until the dark wolf interrupted them.

The dark wolf was astonished at this, they were being assaulted by the terrifying wails of the child, afflicted with a stun and daze effect, and they were still bitching towards him. They were commenting on his every move, giving their unwanted advice at a moment’s notice, and resembling nagging hags more than proud and powerful creatures.

As he had difficulty battling both the inside and outside forces, he could hear the mage taunt him.

“Ha! I thought you were so strong, but you can’t even handle Roach. You are divided! You are weak! Like this, you are nothing you damned Cerberus wannabe!”

While the three heads could not entirely understand the mage, they knew what he was hinting at. That damned mage called them weak! He will pay!

The other two heads might not be able to use their magic, but they were still able to fight without it.

As the heads responded to the taunt, they unified, and started pressuring the mage and its creation. They started to attack with more and more ferocity, wanting to kill both the mage and its creation.

Because of this, poor Roach had it hard. While at the start he could fight on equal terms with the giant wolf, he was being put on the defence more and more, resulting in having to parry most strikes with its scythes and tail, and having to dodge a lot. He rarely had any openings he could make use of, and as one of those finally appeared, he made a costly mistake.

He thought that its side was exposed for a second, since the head on the left was focusing on his master instead of him, but he was wrong. The head suddenly shot out towards him, and it got hold of one of its scythes. The scythe was quickly torn off with sheer force. Roach could only shriek in pain before having to continue parrying and dodging with one less arm, and a bleeding wound.

As Roach got back to his master, he felt the air change. He felt the dark mana in the air that originally caused the screams change form. He felt the mana condense in a wall between them and the creature. He quickly looked towards the origin of the power, and found a small child sitting there. The child looked extremely weak, but he was controlling an extremely large amount of power.

Roach suddenly knew how to win this fight, he had to eat the child. He would get the magic power of the small child, and he would be able to beat that damned dog! Master would be happy with his increase in power, and that dog would be dead! He would be powerful, and that damned dog would be dead!

As he savoured the thought, he ran towards the small child. Surprising both Orthrus and the chimera, they could not do anything for a moment but watch as the enlarged cockroach was almost upon Daelyn. They realized that he would not be able to defend himself in this situation, and both could only pale at the sight of his encroaching death.

The chimera tried to break through the wall made by Daelyn, but to no avail. All of the dark mana in the room was condensed into that wall, resulting in something that could not be easily broken without a charge.

Orthrus hurriedly tried to gain control of the chimera, but the constant battle with the right head of the chimera had worn him out, and he knew his magic would take just too long for Daelyn to survive.

As Roach creeped up on Daelyn, he raised his scorpion tail, directed it towards Daelyn, and struck.