A Dare (Author’s POV)

A princess was tortured and raped.

A single scream resounded through the air.

A sight was burned into an already wounded mind.

A single thought that sought destruction.

Carnage was wrought.

Blood dripped.

Pus oozed.

Life thinned.

Rage grew.

Despair piled up.

Tears fell.

Apologies were exchanged.

The soul was spirited away by the goddess.

A fist was slammed into the ground.

A cry sounded through the forest, echoing outwards from the broken figure.

Hope died, and so did she.

All because he couldn’t protect her.

All because he couldn’t find her in time.

All because he was too weak.

All because she came with him.

All because he took her with him.

Lilia floated away, slowly and carefully carrying Thea’s soul. She had done well to live this long. It really was a shame that she had to die.

It hit Rayne hard. Her eyes, so vividly brimming with life before, staring back at him lifelessly. The tears that dripped from his eyes steadied, tracing the line their ancestors had left behind.

He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. All of his emotions swirled together, mixing and dilating. He was confused, the tears no longer just from grief. Rage and despair sloshed back and forth.

He felt guilty. He blamed the demons. He blamed Fate. He blamed Dradacil. All of his guilt stayed behind, reminding him of his sins. His conscious still weighed enough to drown him in sorrow.

Eve was similar. She cried until she could cry no more, outlasting Rayne by a few minutes. But then she was devoid of emotion, sitting as if something vital had been removed from her. Which, in a way, wasn’t a bad way to describe it.

“The demons. They did this to her… If I can’t save… I’ll avenge…” Rayne was muttering lowly, broken sentences pulling his dark thoughts to the surface. He was planning to commit a genocide.

Just to put it into perspective, he was planning to take out every demon, from a continent about the size of all of Earth’s land area. What was the super continent called? Pangea? About the size of that. The entire area is covered by, approximately, a demon every few square feet.

Just let me do some math here…

If he wants to kill every demon, it would be about 10 million. If you include the reproduction rates…

Rayne is inadvertently suggesting that he will kill something around 50 million demons, in under a few days, or the number would actually be higher. If he only wants to kill the Treants and Drakins, then it would lower to about 10 million again. Those are some of the most common demons.

Anyway, back to the story.

Rayne stood, his eyes growing dark red. Mana trickled out of him, converging in a single point. With the orb hovering over Thea’s body, Rayne dropped it. It didn’t hit like it should have, more like it was a liquid. It spread over her body, filling each wound and covering each bruise. The obtrusions, such as the twigs, were dissolved.

Using a perfect memory, due to his mana, the flesh was reconstructed. It was not healing. It was reconstruction. The missing flesh was burned to the other pieces. If Thea was alive, the pain would be unbearable and would send her into shock.

But it made her body presentable. That was the true goal. The mana still over her body began to slowly crystallize, faceting and cracking for effect. The immeasurable amount that covered her had turned into a few-inch-thick sheet of diamond.

Her face was reflected in the moonlight, the diamond completely pure with no scuff marks. The coffin had no lid, nor did it have any holes.

With this, not even Time may touch her.

Not quite satisfied with the result, Rayne used another burst of mana to fully fix up her appearance. Her hair straightened, the original fluffy appearance coming to light, and her clothes began to reform. Emerald, interwoven with thin threads of titanium, slowly formed around her body, the interfering diamond creating a small pattern of stars.

The dress formed slowly, taking almost 15 minutes, but it reflected her beauty perfectly, each complimenting the other. The next thing Rayne did was make sure nobody could touch it. He began to lift it from the ground, forming it from a coffin into a diamond cocoon of sorts, a pillar holding it off the ground. The cocoon was slanted at an angle, to gather the perfect amount of light from the moon. His mana filled the pillar, turning it black. He gave it orders, instructions to keep everybody from touching it.

And with that, he felt he had respected her enough. Now, it was time to avenge her.

Vera, who had been silent until now, and Eve, who was too stunned to speak, both rushed forward to catch up with him.

“Please, wait here. I don’t want you to… I don’t want you to see me like this. I don’t want you to see those demons. So, please wait here.” Rayne asked, but the girls weren’t about to give up just yet.

He sighed, before hugging them both to his chest. A relatively small amount of mana forged into collars, binding around their necks. A thought sent a chain connecting to a small post of mana he made in the distance. An appropriate amount of food was conjured in front of the post, held a few inches off the ground by a piece of cloth. It would grow cold quickly, but he couldn’t let them starve.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you come with me.”

“Rayne! Please, no! Let me come! Don’t go again!” Eve was heartbroken in more ways than one. Her only friend had just died, and now her brother was leaving her again.

“No need to worry, I’ll be back soon…” His words were soft but had a sharp edge to them.

With that, he set off to commit mass genocide. He had no need to hold back, so he kept his vampire transformation.

Eve and Vera were stuck sitting in the same place all day. Eve, at first, tried to dissolve the amount of mana holding her in place, but Rayne’s control over it was superb. She could barely budge it.

Eventually giving up, she began talking with Vera. But, as a fox, she would much rather be left alone, maybe some petting in there. With that in mind, she cut the conversation short and began to pet her.

Purring was the only sound in the night, no birds or crickets to bother it. The wind was unable to rustle the leaves. The branches held firm. The grass was stiff. All was silent except for the small rumbling creature in Eve’s lap.

From a third perspective like me, it was adorable. I forgot to pay attention to Rayne for quite a bit, in fact.

10 million demons were not quite killed. But the number was brought down to about 6.74 million. Woot. 3.26 million demons killed in a single day.

I mean, I suppose that with the vampiric transformation on the entire 24 hours, his speed would be insane, his control over his mana near the only thing rivaling it. His main tactic, from what I saw, was to simply annihilate the demon.

He would see it, land near it, taunt it into attacking him, then stop it from existing with a single blast of mana. It would either wrap around the head/core of the demon, crushing it to the size of a marble, or it would just explode outwards in a raging silver fury, devouring anything in its path.

Now, three days later, he is fighting the king of demons. His usual tactics won’t work on such a high leveled demon, obviously.

His normal burst of mana, shaped as a bullet, shot forward with tremendous speed. The Variant 10 Drakin, Elder Dragon, evaded it completely. It didn’t even come close to touching it. Rayne stepped to the side as a few dozen black feathers whizzed by his face. He rolled as he hit the ground, pushing himself into the air with his hands. His mana was already rushing in every direction, making a large amount of dark fog. The Elder Dragon backed away from the gas, careful not to touch any. It seems he has some sort of mana perception, so he knows exactly how dangerous that mana is.

It didn’t really matter how far he went away from it, however, as it continued pouring out of Rayne’s infinite storages. Spears made directly from condensed mana flew out endlessly, making the demon leap back and forth in evasive maneuvers. One of the spears clipped its feathered wing. Unluckily for him, that spear was one of the 50% that was a {Mana Bolas}.

The branch skill hasn’t been mentioned much, so let me refresh your memory. The Mana Bolas is where Rayne controls the mana after it leaves his hands, making it constrict around whatever it hits. If the demon had looked behind it, it would see many of the trees there had suffered the same fate.

The wing was taken out of combat, snapping quite uncleanly in half. It buckled, as well as the Elder Dragon’s legs. In response to the pain, it let out a huge roar, shaking the very ground. Mana was hastily shoved into Rayne’s ears, a little sharp. The blood only helped fill in the small openings he had left, though. Due to these circumstances, the roar had little to no effect on Rayne.

Once the roar had finished, it opened the remaining wing and slammed it into the ground. The feathers all shook loose from it, impaling the ground in a storm. Once all of them had fallen, he twirled, dragging his tail across the ground. It hit the tops of the feathers, flicking them out of the ground like a machine gun. Rayne had to leap back to avoid them, and even then he was still hit by a few. The large mana fog cloud solidified slightly in the amount of time he had, blocking a bit less than a fourth of them.

Another volley flew just after another roar, the drakin seeming to have slammed its broken wing into the ground much the same as it had with the other one. Rayne was prepared this time, having the fog completely solid around him. The volley had no effect.

But the next attack was a different story. His mana, more of a dark gray than black, was beaten on top of Rayne as the Elder Dragon leaped on it. He coughed up blood, his vampiric transformation growing stronger at the sight of it.

With a roar of his own, deafening inside his head, he pushed the half ton dragon away from him. It flipped on its back, flailing its legs in the air futilely. Rayne gave a bloody grin as he inched closer, massaging his injured legs. They repaired quickly, but he still felt the pain. It never quite seemed to go away when he wanted it to.

The mana fog condensed into a single spear, nearly a meter in length, attached to Rayne’s hand as he shoved it deep into the demon king. Black blood splattered upwards, covering him in it. The flailing legs grew still.

It seemed he had won.

But it was not yet over. With a sudden bang, the Drakin’s tail hit the ground, piercing it with all of its remaining strength. Muscles bulging invisibly, the dragon pulled himself up, pointing his entire body to the sun for a split second before tumbling back to the ground. Landing on his feet, he let out a defiant yell. It was weaker than before, but it still had enough strength to knock Rayne a few steps back by proximity. He held his hands over his ears, trying desperately to shield them from the vibrations. He felt something pop in his left one.

His vision swam after that. He faintly made out a blotted shape coming at him and ducked to avoid it. He was too slow, however, as his head was torn off.

A large blot of darkness overcame him. He sat down, coming to terms that he had just died. Last time, he had been here a few minutes. I can actually talk to him in there, but I think I’ll leave him alone this time. Last time, I explained some things, like the time ratio between here and the outside world. Which, in case you wanted to know, was 2:1.

He thought about how to counter the roar. Coming up with no answers other than blocking out the vibrations in the air, he thought about how to do that. I felt my mouth twitch in a smirk as I remembered something, deciding to give him access to his mana in this space.

Not that I expect him to find out about it anytime soon. I wonder what is happening to his body outside? Oh, it’s just sitting there. How boring. His health should be recovering to full right about now. Right about… now.

The second part of the fight, Rayne took no chances. Standing up, fully recovered, the Demon lord could only look on in shock. Rayne was the one smirking this time, absorbing the few points of mana that were floating about still. The fog faded, leaving a seven-month-old child against a Drakin Variant 10. Jet black mana formed in Rayne’s hand, replicating the sword he had made before, at the school.

A crazed look in his eyes, he leaped forward. The sword flashed in front of him, slow enough for a normal person to dodge it. Which made sense, considering the amount it must have weighed. The dragon gave a huff, seeming to be quite sure the attack would do nothing to it. It was, of course, mistaken.

Space itself bent around the sheer force behind the swing of the sword. It got about halfway to the dragon when it cut. The sword warped, curving to the shape of a crescent moon. The swing sped up, no longer held up by gravity or air resistance. The slash extended, meeting the demon lord from nearly twelve meters away. It gave a roar just before it was cut short. Literally and figuratively.

But something strange happened. After the sword hit it, finding no resistance other than the amount it was already cleaving through, the demon began to fix itself. The sword was lodged in it still, Rayne having stopped it short of the heart, as the flesh on the other side of it grew tendrils extending to the other side. It shortly stitched itself up, its wing snapping back in place with a disgusting crack.

The Dragon had an extremely arrogant look, mixed with some fear and anger. Of course, it was definitely mostly anger and arrogance, fear taking up very little of its somewhat expressionless face. I’ll think later about how I can tell so much about emotions when I look at this mostly emotionless creature.

“Regeneration?” Rayne muttered to himself upon seeing all of his damage unwrought.

“Just how I like it!” He grinned, a wild look to his black-stained appearance.

Another slash, the same thing happening. The feathers grew back as well. Elder Dragon slammed both wings into the ground furiously, its eyes dark red. Feathers poured down like rain, driving into the ground like spikes.

A pause was taken between the both of them. It lasted a heartbeat before both of them sprung back into motion. The tail whipped the ground in a fury, leaving large gashes as dirt clumps and feathers alike were set into motion. Rayne shortened the sword, taking nearly half of its length away. With a series of swift cuts, portals and fractures appeared in the air, all creating small cracks large enough to cause disarray. The feathers collided with space, distorting and twisting as if they were in a pulverizer.

Rayne grinned as the dirt clumps were ripped to shreds, splattering dust into the air. It made for quite the view blocker. Even I couldn’t see if he had survived. The demon king certainly didn’t think so.

A single spear flew out of the dust. A pulse of mana followed it. Both were huge. Space did not warp around them, or else they would be temporarily unable to gain that momentum, but it seems that I was just speaking a bit too early.

The bolt connected with the back of the sharp cone of a spear and space ripped apart. The spear disappeared in a large crack. The Elder Dragon looked about, confused. Space shattered behind it, sheering off a small shard of whatever it was breaking through. The shard fell along with the spear, impaling the demon king in two places. The brain and heart of the demon were vaporized. The spear began to hum, and a small amount of mana pulsed its way out of the cloud of dust that still lingered.

With a sound, one that could only be described as a howl, the spear imploded, taking a large chunk of air with it. The sound that came from it was the sound of the vacuum being filled with demon flesh and air all at once.

The hastily constructed mana shield was torn apart, as well as the dust cloud. All that remained was Rayne, kneeling and clutching his sides. He was covered in scratches, varying in depth and length, but none anywhere too important. Wait, there was one really close to the place between his legs. Poor him. It seems he needs more time to practice warping space.

And with that, the battle was over. All that remained of the Demon King, Drakin Variant 10, Elder Dragon, was a light drizzle of its black blood.

What a nice ending.

Oh? Something interesting seems to be approaching the two girls that are locked down back at base.

With a Dash of Salt (Eve’s POV)

Vera is sitting in my lap, just like these past three days. Rayne is out, again, like these past three days. The silence is deafening. But there is something that has not been here these three days, that is staring me in the face.

Not a demon, as I would have expected. Instead, it was a girl, looking no older than a few months old, who stood in front of me. She inspected us closely, her gaze lingering at our necks. I suspected it was the collars, but for all I knew, she could be a vampire as well.

“Is this… M&S play?” She sounded oddly excited.

“No…”

“Pet?”

“No?”

“Oh! I got it! Slave play!”

“No!” I was getting a bit annoyed now.

“Aww… I wanted to join…” She hung her head dejectedly. I was pretty much speechless.

“What’s M&S play?” Vera asked from my lap, her head perked up. The girl in front of me raised her head, her expression all smiles. One finger raised, ready to explain before I stopped her.

“You don’t need to know. You don’t need to explain.” I pointed to each one in turn.

She once again went back to the dejected slumping.

“So, why are you shackled?” She asked after a bit.

“Hmmm… How to explain it… Well, he should be getting back soon anyway.” I responded, pointing to the figure who was speeding towards us.

She followed my finger, seeing the figure, before panicking. Her breathing began growing heavier, so on and so forth. She even began fanning her flushed face with her hands. Honestly, it was a very old, but cute gesture. I liked it.

“So it was a he… Ooooh, I’m getting turned on…” She was muttering things. I pretended not to hear.

Rayne landed with a thud and a dust cloud, his vampiric state wearing off. He gets tired with all the stimuli he gets from his increased senses and perception.

I waved to him, shooting a concerned glance at the girl. He followed my gaze and showed a look of understanding. I mean, it was hard not to understand that something was wrong with a girl whose breath was showing up in the middle of a fairly warm day. She was also rocking slightly from side to side on her feet, which couldn’t end well.

“So, who are you?”

“Could you tie me up?!”

“So, who are you?” Rayne just repeated himself, not paying attention to the lustful woman's words.

“Please?! I want to be tied up, then maybe if you could abuse me… or maybe you could just leave me there… I’m into neglect play as well!” She was shouting things children should not hear. I covered Vera’s, wishing I could cover my own. Rayne was very good at keeping a straight face as he responded.

“I’m sorry. The chains only last a few hours without me there to refresh them, and I’m an M.”

She ignored him splendidly.

“Or maybe we could do it inside, I can get my candles… Oh, unless you want me to do it with all of those demons watching! That could be fun in its own way…”

Rayne turned away from her and her delusional fantasies.

“So, Eve, where to next? I’ve… finished.” He spoke to me this time, undoing all of the restraints. I sat up, dumping Vera onto the ground. After quickly dusting myself off, I hugged Rayne.

“Where do you want to go? I think you need a vacation.” I whispered into his ear. I could feel his body tense up from my touch and my words.

“I can’t… I can’t resist this…” He whispered back in an equally low voice, clutching his chest.

My heart sped up as I thought he was talking about his heart, but I realized he was actually talking about his brand. In response to his attention, it glowed faintly through his black-stained shirt.

The girl took no notice of this, being a bit… preoccupied. I’m not sure whether I should be glad that she didn’t see it or just disgusted that she was able to get so caught up in her thoughts.

“So, where do we go?” I asked, tightening my grip on him.

“I don’t know. I don’t know where to start. I need some time to think without Thea in my mind.” Rayne’s voice was tearful, confused and quivering.

I resolved my feelings, smiling through the similar emotions I had. I nodded, burying my face in his back. His front was covered in black bile, but the back had no such thing.

“Rayne, you reek. You need a bath.” I commented, taking a deep breath. It wasn’t quite true, but it wasn’t quite a lie.

He brought an arm to his face. Then he grimaced, nodding his head in agreement.

“Then why don’t you come to my house?” The girl spoke up again. I had forgotten she was there.

But her offer was an odd one. She was offering to take some random adventurers to her house, for no reason. Was this natural for her? Was this what she did?

“Are you… a dwarf?” Rayne asked, tilting his head slightly.

“I am.”

“Alright, let’s go. Come on, Vera.” Rayne didn’t even look to the side. Vera appeared there a second later, seeming a bit too happy.

“Vera, what’s up?” I asked.

“We’re going to a dwarf house! I heard they live deep inside the mountains, mining their way to riches while advancing their crafting skills. I always wanted to go to a dwarven house!” Her sentence structure was a bit odd, going from an excited kid to a teacher, then back again.

“Oh, is that so…”

“I was thinking of going and learning how to smith! It might be a good idea to learn anything I can about it, while I can. After all, if we ever get armor or good ores, we might need to forge them into something good.”

“But don’t we all mostly use mana to fight?”

Vera froze in her tracks, Rayne just walking on.

“You… Have a point…” She sounded really depressed. I almost felt bad for pointing it out.

“I mean, sure, I guess we could have ourselves a mana blacksmith, but then it would be a better idea to learn from Rayne, would it not?”

“RAYNE, PLEASE TEACH ME!!!” Vera was in front of him, bowing in a perfect dogeza.

“Hmm? Teach you what?”

“Mana blacksmithing!”

“Sure.”

“Wait, what?” The dwarven girl asked from ahead, not sure what to make of the scene.

“I don’t want two students, so no.” Rayne put up a hand.

“That’s not what I was trying to get at!” She complained, not taking her eyes off that hand.

“Alright, maybe it was, but I want to know what mana blacksmithing is!” She continued.

“Smithing with mana. What do you think it is?” Rayne asked, looking at her like she was stupid. I had to agree.

Anyway, we are at the house now. Or, technically, mountain. It’s one of the smaller ones, just barely any snow on the top. The dwarven girl, who introduced herself as Helila, lead us around the mountain. She placed her palm on a tree some ten feet away from the base of the mountain, which consequently began to rise.

A hole was formed in the ground, which Helila motioned to before leaping down. The rest of our little group followed a slight bit behind. I was last.

The inside of the house was more of a mansion. I mean, with such a large space to mine, of course, the house would be large, but this was a bit extreme. Let me describe it.

The first floor had three rooms. The first, to the right of the doorway, was a living area. I wouldn’t really call it a room because it was the size of a football field. Many branching pathways caved into the walls, which Helila so delightfully described as ‘the deepest mines on this side of the mountain.’ The next room was somewhat closer to being normal sized, but it wasn’t quite at that level. It was the kitchen, about half the football field, and each of the utensils was normal sized. It could hold multiple feasts and a banquet at the same time. The last room was the smallest of all of them, and it was a multipurpose bathroom. It had a walk-in closet, a full bath with a ten-foot tall shower, three sinks for no reason, and marble floors. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I would have simply called this utter nonsense.

But no, the next floor was even worse. It had a bedroom, another bathroom that was the same as the last, a storage room, a sunbathing balcony, and a pool. The sunbathing balcony was obviously the thing that caught my attention, as it was a few hundred yards in the air. It was as if somebody had carved out a large slice of the mountain. Well, large isn’t really accurate when compared to the rest of the house, but it was about thirty feet across, twenty feet wide. Like I said, relatively small, but large by normal standards.

The pool was just stupid. It went from 1 meter to 10 meters deep, spanning an entire 120 meters (Just a bit longer than an American football field). Since Helila described the dimensions, I can only assume that Avalon uses the metric system. I’m not very good with it, so I’ll have to just keep in mind that a meter is just under 3 feet.

The bedroom was at least somewhat normal sized. It was a bit larger, 5 by 6 meters, but that was probably the only one of its kind.

The third floor was the interesting one. It was two flights of steps up, with solid rock covering the odd space between them. With a single question, I got the answer I was looking for.

“Oh? The space is because this is the work floor, so I needed to mine into the ground in a few places.”

It truly was a work floor. I could feel Rayne getting excited without even looking. A second later, he dashed away, searching the rooms and avoiding the tools on the floor with amazing agility. Sighing to myself, I followed him closely and picked up after his mess, putting tools back where they were taken from.

He always was a bit too into things like this. The work rooms consisted of a blacksmithing area, complete with a forge, anvil, trough, and smoke outlet. A tailor’s shop, a few looms, a mechanized assembly line, complete with a creation queue. Another kitchen, another pool, a workout room, filled to the brim with exercise equipment, and finally a room filled with crystals. They all shined different colors, filling the large room with a multitude of beams.

The colors were vibrant, and I was mesmerized. My consciousness faded out at some point, but I was still bathing in the colors, even once my eyes had closed and the world around me blackened.

Just before I completely lost all reason, I heard a ding, and I could feel a window pop up before me.

Now, I wonder what that could say?