Devourer

Chapter 161: Feral Rose

Rosa gazed coldly at the thrall pressing her head to the floor in the slave pen. Judging from her appearance she was a pleasure thrall. These types of thralls were trained to be far more sentimental and free thought was allowed to a greater extent. These traits made them better partners in bed so it was a natural part of their training. This was probably why this one decided to wander into the pen.

Pleasure thralls were obedient so at least she could be counted on to follow instructions. At least with her here, the lesser thralls won’t run loose throughout the Ziggurat.

“Make sure they stay in there. If I see any of them running loose I will flay both the offenders and you alive.” Rosa said coldly and the girl nodded frantically her face still plastered to the floor.

With that settled Rosa continued down the hallway heading towards the teleportation array. She could hear her guards walking behind her. She didn’t bring her full entourage, Rosa knew that the Great Beast would be watching through the eyes of his hive.

In truth, she only volunteered for this task because it would allow her to showcase her personal combat abilities to the Great Beast. This whole crusade was a farce anyway, it was just a glorified audition.

Rosa tilted her head as she saw a dozen of the beasts appear at the end of the corridor. They all began to charge her and she just raised her arm as she channeled her spell.

She released her spell [Sanguine Rot] onto the massed group of beasts. The red crackling mist cloud that erupted from her hand washed over the beasts. The beasts began to squirm as their muscles failed and their blood rotted from the inside. At the end of the day, the living needed to breathe, no matter how hard your armour was, most creatures were still soft on the inside.

When the blood rots it destroys the internal organs and kills the creature. It was rather effective for her purposes. With a wave of her hands, she casted [Greater Raise Dead] and the corpses of the beasts all twitched as their bodies glowed with Necromatic Energies. The once growling beasts now stood silent and still, no longer requiring to breathe.

Rosa nodded towards the beasts and they all charged off to hunt more of their fellows. She continued to proceed down the hallways killing and raising any more of the hive beasts that she came across. These were superior units, the weaker troops were probably still fighting outside. If Rosa wanted to stop the incursion the only way was to destroy the teleportation array. Ordias would need to spend alot of time and resources repairing them. However, it was still better than letting the enemy continue to rampage through his base.

When she finally reached the teleportation array to her surprise she saw a lone humanoid hive creature standing in the middle of the large room.

“Hello Rosa.” the beast said with a grin.

The beast was humanoid in shape, it had digitigrade legs that had feet that were similar in design to the ancient Draconians. The feet had four toes with three toes fanned out in the front and one toe at the back. Each was tipped with curved claws designed for slashing and tearing. The torso was heavily armoured and it had four arms each equipped with grasper hands. Which was very much unlike the other hive creatures that had their weapons built into their limbs. The head was a white sensor dome. From it’s back extended a set of gold feathered wings that glowed with power.

At first glance, Rosa could tell this creature was several levels stronger than any of the Hive creatures she has observed. This must be a cream-of-the-crop unit designed to take on the toughest of opponents. If this wasn’t a Seraphim killer design Rosa didn’t what was.

“Who are you?” Rosa asked.

“The interviewer.” the creature said as four hilts made of bone and flesh appeared in its hands. The hilts all flashed and from them appeared red energy blades.

“Focii Blades.” Rosa said as she narrowed her eyes warily. She knew about these weapons, they were as powerful as they were rare. She had seen some of the beasts firing lasers from their tails and the human soldiers were also armed with similar weapons. Rosa thought it was something else since it was impossible to accrue that many Focii crystals.

But now as she looked at them up close they were definitely Focii crystals. How the Great Beast got so many of them she had no idea but the ancients were known for doing what was thought impossible.

Her guards all stepped forward brandishing their Dark Steel halberds. Rosa raised a hand and she waved them off. Her guards hesitated for a moment before retreating behind her again.

“Good choice, I didn’t want to waste such capable tools. It would be a shame to kill them for nothing.” the creature said.

“So the Great Beast sent you to test me?” Rosa said and the beast smiled as the gaping portals behind him all slammed shut, ceasing the flow of hive beasts.

“I think I have done enough damage to get your attention.” the creature said and Rosa finally realised that she was speaking to the Great Beast himself.

“It is an honour to finally meet you.” Rosa said as she gave him a graceful bow.

“Impress me.” the Great Beast said as he flourished his blades.

Rosa nodded as she channeled spells into her hands and the Great Beast charged forward. Rosa didn’t need to ask how he was in this form, she knew the ancients were filled with tricks. This was probably a mindless puppet piloted by the beast. Knowing the ancients he probably had some ulterior motive, perhaps he was testing this new design. Rosa would definitely be a good test partner considering her strength.

The beast opened with a perfect slash right at her. She instantly channelled a [Sanguine Blade] that created a great blood blade that slashed the area in front of her parrying the blow. The Great Beast easily flipped over the strike and followed up with a cross slash.

Rosa released a high tier spell known as [Greater Shockwave] that sent out a wave of force to push him back and buy some space. The Great Beast was barely knocked back into the air and with a flap of his wings he renewed his assault.

She knew she couldn’t beat him in melee combat, having four arms meant that there was no way for her defend effectively against his strikes. Furthermore she recognised that combat style, it was the style combat used by the Draconian Knights. It was style that capitalised on their strength, speed and natural armour. It was brutally efficient, focusing on minamalist movements to deliver a flurry of rapid strikes. This was in contrast to the Seraphim’s style of graceful evasion and sudden bursts of attacks as well as the style of the High Elves that preferred to maintain a set distance between them and their opponents.

Rosa would usually struggle the most of the Seraphim style of combat since they were so quick. But when she was facing a four armed opponent armed with four Focii blades she really didn’t want to fight against an opponent using the Draconian Style of combat. Focii blades were so dangerous a single well placed strike could end a fight so the constant charging and flurry of blows made it hard to deal with.

She had no choice but to constantly use teleportation and spells that gave her quick bursts of speed to maintain spacing. Her barriers could barely hold up against the strikes, her preferred type of barrier was known as the [Crimson Gate] that allowed her to take damage while firing spells out of it. Hence the name being a gate, something that blocked intruders from coming in but allowed friendlies out.

This spell could usually take alot of hits but Focii blades were notoriously strong in terms of penetration. They fried the ether circuits within spells and caused a disruption effect. Her barriers were collapsing in just a few strikes.

But she wasn’t just going to spend the fight dodging until she ran out of mana. She had a plan and she was executing it with each quick dodge. You see she wasn’t just dodging in random directions, she was leaving a trail of invisible runes on the ground. The idea was for her to form a magic circle that would trigger a powerful spell.

Large magic circles created spells on the level of ritual magic with the only drawback of needing it to be set up beforehand. Usually, these runes needed to be directly carved into the ground but Rosa was skilled and powerful enough to directly carve it in with magic while pairing it with an illusion spell to hide it.

The Great Beast was too fast and all her crowd control spells were being resisted by that body. That fact was not that unexpected, solo operatives often had significant resistance to crowd control since being pinned was a death sentence. Even for humanoids, solo operatives often wore equipment that made them resistant to various forms of crowd control.

When Rosa cast another crowd control spell that caused red chains to wrap around the Great Beast’s body it didn’t even slow him down. He just moved as if the chains weren’t there and pulled free as if he was held by strings of yarn.

Rosa continued to move zig-zagging across the circle making sure to plant her feet at just the right location and place the right rune. It took almost half an hour but she was finally done.

"Finally done laying your trap?" the Great Beast asked with a grin. Rosa felt her blood turn to ice when she realised that the Great Beast was just humouring her. He was letting her do her little trick just to see what she was capable of.

Rosa didn't reply, her face was a stoic mask. If he wasn't afraid of it then he could probably withstand it.

The Great Beast chuckled as he closed in and Rosa finally unleashed her trap.

With a flash the floor beneath her came alive with red runes and a thick crimson dome rose up over the two of them. The dome was called [Ashen Ground] it was simple in concept but extremely difficult in execution due the need for a static ritual circle. The spell acted by creating a field of negative energy that would both empower Rosa who was a Vampire and damage most other living races.

It was a type of double dipping trick, Rosa effectively gets some of the resources she spent on casting the spell back while the enemy takes significant damage.

Or at least that was the idea…

Rosa gaped as she watched the Great Beast start to drain the negative energy right out of the air around him. The red lightning striking its body only seemed to empower it.

Then the spell ended and she watched as the Great Beast licked its lips with a long snake-like tongue.

“That was a nice snack.” the Great Beast said as he began to slowly approach her.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t put in negative energy resistance when I’m fighting Vampires?” the Great Beast said as he chuckled.

“Rule number one of fighting a hive, your strengths do not remain yours for long…” the Great Beast said as he brandished his blades.

Rosa felt something stir inside her that she hasn’t felt in a long time, fear. She instantly tried to retreat but the Great Beast shot forward faster than she could react to. She saw him raise his leg and its taloned claws closed around her head. She screamed as she felt him push her over backwards and slam her into the floor. She sensed her guards move to assist her but then she heard the humming whirl of the Focii blades, then the thuds of bodies hitting the ground.

Rosa though terrified was experienced enough not to panic. She instantly transformed into her full vampiric form and grabbed the leg pinning her down before wrenching it off her face. She opened her mouth which was now this wide maw filled with needle-like teeth. She bit down hard on the armoured feet, her teeth going through the armour and splintering it. She started to drain the blood but she saw a flash of red and the flow of blood ceased.

She sprang to her feet and saw that the Great Beast had chopped off its own leg. She watched as this mass of flesh erupted from the stub of the thigh and another leg instantly reformed. Rosa scanned the area around her and saw that her guards were either dead or dying.

“Not bad.” the Great Beast said with a chuckle as he tested his new leg.

“I was wondering when the monster was going to be let out.” the Great Beast said with a grin.

“Now that we are at this stage how about we drop the civility? You aren’t that good of a fencing partner anyway.” the Great Beast said as he put away his blades.

Rosa watched as his claws elongated into long curved talons. She knew if one of those hit her it would rend the flesh from her bones. Although she could regenerate there was a limit to it. Plus she really didn’t want to test her regeneration that could regenerate an entire leg in seconds.

Even she was unable to do something like that without spells assisting her. She could heal large gashes but she wasn’t able to heal entire limbs back without spells. Such regenerative abilities were the domain of the old gods, some very specific ancient species, or a hive creature explicitly designed for it.

Now shall we continue?