“[Blood Domination]!”

The Lord’s eyes flashed and Satou’s eyes began to dim as the life was sucked out of him, leaving behind a lifeless shell.

The Lord broke out into a cold sweat, as he struggle to remain standing as he grew increasingly more exhausted. He closed his eyes and ordered Satou’s body to move a bit confirming the effects. He sighed, “Physical Domination complete….to think I would end up using this here….but it’s for the sake of the clan right, Father….”

The lord laid back onto his chair relaxing. He thought back to a time several thousand years ago.

He recalled the sight of a deathly pale, old man on sitting on a throne. This old man, looked as if he would keel over and die at any moment. And despite standing at death’s door, his very presence still filled the room with an aura of majesty. This man was an extremely powerful, and renowned demon, he was the Demon King of the Rosen Clan, Reynolds R. Rosen the former head of the clan.

He sat in the throne of his castle, with only a single young man kneeling before him in the large room. The old king closed his eyes, reminiscing the many years of his life. And when he opened his eyes, they revealed a great deal of sadness, and regret. He looked at the youth with a grim expression, and said, “Royce, my son it is time. The war has ended, the Horned Clan has been temporarily suppressed, and in turn we have paid a dearly. Royce. I-I’m sorry I…. I couldn’t protect your mother…..”

The king clenched his fists, and looked as if he would break down at any moment. He spoke mournfully.

“I have no right to do this to you, but I have no choice but to leave the clan in your hands. This is all I can do is ensure the clan will flourish and survive. But even something like that might be asking for a bit too much. Royce you should know by now that our clan will undoubtedly fall from grace. The Rosen clan has lost far, far too many members. We won’t even be able to hold onto the entirety of our domain. It's time for you to take over, and accept inherit my legacy"

Royce looked up, distressed he said, “Father! That’s-”

“Enough!”, he rebutted, “Royce, we have no other choice. I’ve grown far too weak… my time is also drawing ever closer. But you can be at ease, we still have those old servants of ours they will live with the clan and fall with the clan. Though our hope lies with the future generations, that child Garius has already stepped into the Mid-Demon level, and he could even reach the realm of a Noble, if not he will at least be in the Archdemon level. He will undoubtedly be one of the clans supporting pillars in the future.”

Royce clenched his teeth, “Father…”

Reynolds sighed, “My son….. know this, I am proud of you. It has only been a few thousand years and you’ve already reached the Archdemon level. Give it a few thousand years, and you’ll have reach my level. So in hope of a better future I will pass onto you a two things. My legacy and one of the forbidden spells created by the True Ancestors: [Blood Domination].”

“What!? That’s the Tepes Clan’s, father how do you…..”

Reynolds had materialized a large book and said, “As the next head to the clan I was planning of teaching you this anyway. It is publicly known that every head of a Vampiric Clan possess at least one closely guarded secret, something left behind by the Ancestors.We possess the True Ancestors’ secret for the most powerful Vampiric Elixir, the [Blood Elixir]. However, in truth every clan has a copy of this Ancient Tomb which contains all the recorded information that Ancestors’ left behind. The thing is having the tomb, and being able to both decipher and comprehend the information held within is a whole other story.”

Reynolds let go of the book allowing it to float down towards Royce. Royce looked over the book, but not matter how he tried he couldn’t understand a thing.

Reynolds continued speaking, “In the millions of years each of the Vampiric Clans have been in existence, each clan has only been able to translate at most a hundred-eighty pages out of the hundred-thousand inside that book. While our clan has spent a total of three millions years deciphering, and comprehending the secrets to the elixir alone. And with great difficulty we managed to recreate an imperfect form of the spell [Blood Domination] after a few hundred thousand years, and a deal with the Tepes Clan. Tell me, what do you understand of the original spell?”

Royce replied, “[Blood Domination], is the trademark of the Tepes Clan, Lord Vladimir Tepes has been using it for millions of years to replace his body allowing him to surpass a demon’s normal lifespan. He has used it dominate members of the Seven Great Clans, and added them to his army of minions. The spell itself is renowned for being just as or even more powerful than the Ethereal Clan’s techniques as It’s not only able to dominate the physical body, but spiritual body and one's very consciousness. However doing this drains an incredible amount of the body's vitality forcing the Lord to constantly switch bodies.”

The lord nodded, and said“Correct. We managed to recreated the spell in it’s entirety, but due to being imperfect it’s side effects became far too frightening. The amount of life force the host loses has been increased to nearly ten times the usual amount, and the technique damages the user's soul. This is the main reason we’ve refrained from using it until now. Unlike Lord Tepes, we are unable to use this technique infinitely, using it twice is more than enough to kill your average High-Demon. Remember to use it only if the situation requires it, even if it is imperfect the spell is still incredibly powerful and possess countless uses.”

Royce opened his eyes. That year was the year his father died after passing down everything he could to him. He stood up and, moved his hand onto Satou’s forehead. He began to gather the blood Satou ingested to Satou’s heart, the location where almost every soul resides.

Once there the lord’s blood shined a bright red before disappearing, leaving behind a sphere of red light. The lord moved his hand onto Satou’s chest, and after closing his eyes, his consciousness entered an entirely pitched black space illuminated by a large sphere with flame inside of it. This large sphere is what is consider the Spiritual Body, while the flame is the Consciousness. These are two parts that make up the soul.

Royce raised both his arms, and blood began to pierce through his skin from the inside out. a few dozen small wholes were formed on his arms as dozens of streams of blood began to slowly go towards Satou's soul. The blood slowly covered the entirety of the sphere, constantly growing in volume as more and more blood was added. After a sufficient amount of blood covered Satou’s soul, he clasped his hands together tightly. His blood began to mimic this and began to squeeze Satou’s soul with a massive amount of pressure. But even after he increased the pressure, adding more and more blood, unexpectedly Satou’s soul remained unchanged.

“How odd? Why can’t I break through his Spiritual Body? Is it because his Soul’s categorized as complete? But even then it shouldn’t be this hard?”, Royce pondered

He soon grew frustrated, and decided to change his approach. He moved back a bit, before he called all the blood covering the sphere to form a long red spear out of it.

After condensing the blood, and adding a bit more he launched the bloody spear at an incredible speed. The spear made a loud boom, as it surpassed the speed of sound at the instant it was thrown. And It struck Satou’s Soul with a loud bang before it began to rapidly spin in a fashion reminiscent of a drill. But even then, the soul remained unscathed.

“You’re wasting your time”

“!?”

An eerie voice echoed in the dark space, shocking the lord.

Royce panicked and thought to himself, “There shouldn’t be anyone here! We’re in one of the most secure rooms in the castle, no one should be able to get close enough to enter this space!”

But a sudden thought came to mind. It was something that should be impossible, no it was impossible. He looked at the only other thing in this space, and asked,“Don’t tell me your that child?”

“Hehehe”, the voice laughed ,”Not exactly?”

A shadow in the shape of a human suddenly appeared in front of him. If not for the light from Satou’s soul he would nearly be impossible to see. The shadow had no eyes, no hair, no clothes. It only had a mouth and some teeth. The lord looked at in asked, “Who are you! How did you get in here!”

It replied, “Me I’m no one really, call me whatever the hell you want. As for how I got here, well I’ve always been here.”

“What? If you’ve always been here then what’s that!”, the lord pointed at the large sphere.

He said, “No body can have more than one consciousness! Besides nothing can survive out here in this sea of energy! Especially not a consciousness without a Spiritual Body! Who are you really!?”

The shadow turned around and looked at Satou’s soul, it said, “What do you mean? Of course I’m shielded by a Spiritual Body, don’t you see?”

Suddenly the a large mouth appeared on the large sphere that was Satou’s Soul, smiling. The two spoke simultaneously blending into one loud voice, “There’s no rule out there saying I a consciousness can't come out, now is there?”

Royce stared at them dumbfounded, he’s never heard of something like this happening before. He yelled, “What in the hell are you!? What are you!? Answer me!”

The large mouth disappeared from Satou’s Soul and the shadow turned around, and said, “Again? I told you already didn’t I? Well how about this, have you ever heard of a God residing in a living being's body?”

The lord thought about it and answered, “Are you referring to the Descent of the Living Gods? The time they began to create proxies to wage war?”

“Something like that. But you see instead of being a God residing in a man's body, I’m more like a man that resides in a Gods.”

“What?”, Royce wasn’t sure what to say, “What do yo- AGH!”

The shadow suddenly closed the distance between them, and punched Royce knocking him back.

The shadow squatted down, and said“I told you all you need to know. Anyway since introductions are out of the way, let’s get to business. You know you’ve made a dumb move, a really dumb move. To think you’d pull such a stupid stunt like this, I wonder exactly how many thousands of years have you lost now. Five thousand? Ten thousand? Maybe even a hundred thousand!”

The shadow laughed mocking, the lord. Royce was furious, he gathered blood from the large spear splitting up to create several smaller spears. He quickly launched these spears at the shadow. Each spear had surpassed the speed of sound like the original and would be incredibly difficult to stop, but just a few centimeters before reaching the shadow they all stopped where they were in the air. The shadow stared at Royce with a mocking smile, before standing up. And with a wave of his hand, the spears turned around and launched at the lord.

“!? [Greater Barrier]!”

Numerous layers transparent light appeared in front of him blocking the spears path. But the spears broke through them like they were nothing.

“AH!”

A spear had pierced right through the lord's knee, his stomach, and his chest. Royce quickly cast magic to gather the blood from his wounds and the spear to created a full body armor out of it.

“You really should give up. You can’t beat me, well not here at least. After all you're in my domain.”, the shadow said with a mocking smile

“This is impossible! Royce screamed, “There’s no way anyone should be here. There’s no way this should be happening! What are you!?”

The shadow turned around and looked at the large sphere, he moved towards it instantly getting within arms reach of it. He placed his hands on it, and answered the lord, “I told you already, I’m nobody. I’m just a shadow of a man, with no real purpose….. no I suppose that last parts not exactly right. But either way even if he doesn't realize it, even if you don’t want to believe it I’m here. And you are....”

The shadow disappeared,

“Dead”

The shadow appeared behind the lord, and pierced right through the breastplate formed from blood with his hands. He grabbed the Lord’s heart and crushed it. The lord’s body quickly grew limp, and fell to the floor before disappearing. The shadow looked at the shining ball of light and said, “I suppose I should say I'm the remains of a man destined to become a God, the last piece of his humanity left to serve as reminder for times to come....”

The shadow also disappeared into the darkness.

A SPOILER NOT REALLY FUN BUT STILL A FACT

The Demon Realm is massive I'm sure you get that. So of course there are many groups with the most prominent being Clans. There are Kingdoms and the like but I can talk about that later. In the Demon Realm there are Seven Great Clans based around the Seven Deadly Sins. These Clans are sometimes based on characteristics, a specific race, or something else in general. For example the Horned Clan have Horns, and Ethereal Clan are a bunch of Ghosts and Specters. While there are races that are split into many clans like the Vampiric Clans which is the general form people refer to the clan of Vampires, which are split into many Clans like the Rosen and the Tepes.