After returning to the Chamber of Lords, the usurpers had not wasted any time in attacking Zekorath. They arrogantly marched into the Chamber of Lords and managed to leverage the element of surprise in their favour, catching Zekorath unaware while he was looking into the problems occuring in the Nether. Launching a frantic ambush, it appeared that they managed to hold their own against him in the current circumstances.
The Demon Lord, hurt by the betrayal of his own friends, appeared to be cornered and was constantly on the defensive. The library that is the great Chamber of Lords was suffering damage from the fight and the tension in the air could be felt, undulating like a living wave.
He stood poised, a few metres away from his opponents, his blade, constructed of blood, pointed at them. Zekorath was a regal presence, tall with average muscles, but his strength did not lie in his body mass. He had a finely sculpted manly face and long white dreadlocked hair from which elongated four beautiful ebony horns with red tips. His skin, deep mahogany and his eyes the colour of blood. Clad in his favourite attire, an elegantly designed pair of black trousers, along with a collarless white shirt under a deep red blazer, was untouched and clean.
Letting out a tired sigh, he spoke.
"Elial, Kab'al. Why would you do such a thing? Uriz? Why now of all times? Can you not see the realm is in need of my utmost attention? I can't be..."
His questions were interrupted by sharp obsidian blades streaking towards him. With an angry growl, he pivoted on his feet and managed to dodge four of them, defending against the remaining three with his blade. Then, sensing an approaching presence from behind, he pointed his blade behind him and cast an ability.
"Fluid Construct, Blood Bind"
A small ball of dark crimson blood seperated from the blade and flew towards the target coming from behind. He then strengthened his feet and leapt up high in the air and backflipped over the approaching general, Uriz, who had dodged the blood projectile.
"You know you missed right? You can't stay on defense forever, my Lord." She spoke with a confident tone, seemingly enjoying her fight against the lord she had betrayed.
She was a very impressive melee fighter. As a member of the Dredge, the clan of muscled female warriors with iron tough skin, she had enough power to actually damage Zekorath if she landed a serious hit. She was tall and had the structure of an Amazon woman with fine, long silver hair that flowed behind her. Her skin was a light tan, with finely sculpted muscles etched on her frame. Her movement, quick and precise, her power devastating. She jumped upwards planning to take down Zekorath from the air. Her right fist cocked for a blow to his open solar plexus, an arrogant smile on her face.
"Gotcha!!"
"Firstly, do you really think I'd miss?" answered Zekorath's tired voice.
"Hyuh!!"
His earlier ability had not been an attack on Zuri, but a trap. The Dredge felt something pull on her foot and in a moment she crashed back into the ground with great force as the chain of blood Zekorath had planted, dragged her and she was flung towards a far bookshelf with great force. She crashed through a row of them and was covered in a heap of books.
Before Zekorath could take a breath, Elial and Kab'al both appeared in an instant pincer attack. Zekorath immediately divided his blade into two, the blood seperating and hardening instantaneously as he blocked the attacks, an obsidian spear and a flaming greatsword that had been aimed at his sides . All three were stuck in a short contest of strength before the Demon Lord swivelled on the spot, causing both opponents to be imbalanced by their own momentum, falling towards him.
"Blood Art, Crimson"
Casting another ability, Zekorath placed a hand on Elial's chest and particles of blood converged around his palm, hardening into a thick and heavy bullet. A sonic boom was heard in the next second and Elial was hurled backwards with an immense force, coughing up blood as he hit a far wall. Then Zekorath whirled again, using the blood art on his foot this time, it connected with Kab'al's jaw and shattered it. Kab'al's neck instantly snapped and Zekorath threw his blade at his flying body, piercing right through his heart.
The blade of blood then evaporated, converged towards Zekorath and reconstructed in his hand.
After lightly landing on the ground, he balanced himself and let out another deep sigh. A deeply pained scowl evident on his face.
"Secondly, I was only defending because I did not want to kill the ones who once saw me as a friend. Does that not mean anything to you anymore?" He asked, his eyes burning with emotion. His deep baritone exuding confidence.
His opponents kept their distance and studied Zekorath. They knew he wasn't truly fighting yet. This had been his first attack since the battle began and he'd managed to damage three of them, and killing one, in a matter of minutes. They rest instantly felt that the reason they hadn't just died was because he had really held back.
"Why are you such a naive Lord?" Xana'nth mocked with no trace of enjoyment in his tone. The shadow wielder kept his attention on the Lord they were up against, looking for an opening. His skin, as most of his kind the Shadow, was a chitinous suit that covered his body with hard yet flexible onyx plates, giving him the appearance of a tall humanoid serpent, with glowing toxic green eyes. He had the ability to create shadow weapons that came with varying and deadly effects.
"We might've be been friends once but that was at a different time. When we could proudly call ourselves demons. You've turned us into lazy peaceful...animals. Your peace is a disease causing us entropy Zekorath. If we allow you to continue leading the realm down this path, we'll lose the essence of who..."
"That's bullshit!!" Zekorath howled with unchecked rage. His aura stunned his generals as they finally felt his open bloodlust.
This is the convoluted thinking he'd been up against ever since he took the throne from the man who had murdered his father. The notion that demons only lived to kill and deceive. That was the way of thinking that he tried to remove from his realm, yet it seemed he was failing at that effort as this very betrayal was caused by such sentiment.
"We are not instruments of evil and destruction Xana'nth. That's just a way of life that one chooses lacking any better aspirations. If that's the way you choose then I am deeply sorry but you cannot live like that in this realm anymore." Zekorath sounded truly hurt and apologetic. He knew that if it had finally come to this, he would have to fight with the intent to kill his backstabbing generals. He was not proud of it however it needed to be done.
Uriz finally managed to get back on her feet, which she had to regenerate since the Fluid Construct chain that had caught her, had completely mangled her legs from the knee down.
"Zekkie, that's exactly why we're trying to remove you from the throne isn't it?" She retorted, spitting blood on the floor. Strectching her body she crouched down on all fours, in the stance of a cunning beastial hunter, readying herself. Her muscles flexed when her palms gripped the floor and her feet dug into the hard packed ground behind her.
Zekorath's grip tightened on his blade, his face showing a sour look at her words.
"Is that how you all truly feel? That removing me would be better for the whole realm? " He asked them.
When no answer came back, he took it as a confirmation. Reconstructing his double blood blades, he lowered his waist and took a fighting stance.
"Then come at me. Make sure you kill me." He growled. Releasing the full force of his bloodlust.
Xana'nth was shocked for one second too long before casting his ability. While Uriz launched herself like a human projectile, sprinting on all fours, she approached Zekorath with lighting speed.
'Another pincer attack?' Zekorath though, keeping his blood sense on every opponent in the room. Elial seemed to be gathering energy to his left. He used the Fire Art, of which Zekorath wasn't worried.
"Shadow Art, Asphodel"
The air around Xana'nth distorted as the shadows formed into an array of onyx spears circling above his head. As soon as Uriz was within Zekorath's reach, she aimed her foot towards his midsection. With a roar she put force into the kick and at the same time Xana'nth launched his spears.
Zekorath caught Uriz' foot and threw her towards the approaching projectiles in a second. However the spears shifted their trajectory, avoiding her body, and kept converging on Zekorath. At the same moment, Elial attacked with multiple shuriken imbued with fire mana and Zekorath raised his left hand towards the shuriken.
"Blood Art, Cocoon."
The blood splattered in the vicinity, like a living slime, slithered towards him and formed a semitransparent red dome, then it instantly hardened, defending against the attack. Zekorath proceeded to calmly imbue mana into his blade and quickly deflected the spears from Xana'nth.
He'd already sensed Uriz approaching from the blind spot to his right.
"Body Art, Perfect Copy"
Her body split into two, then three, as she created perfect clones of herself. When the clones reached him, Zekorath retracted his blades and faced them. A fierce competition of hand-to-hand combat ensued. The speed with which Uriz attacked was blindingly fast and this time, he was facing three of her. His concentration didn't waver one bit. Zekorath had learned the self defence and combat martial arts of the Bloodborne. Kicks and punches imbued with mana constantly rained down on him, yet he matched her calmly with his defense. The rapid sound of deflected attacks lasted for about two minutes.
Zekorath grabbed the extended hand that had been meant as a punch and dragged Uriz towards him then flung her towards one of the clones, before delivering a devastating roundhouse kick to the one that had been trying to sneak in from behind, blowing her away instantly. He jumped back from her, planning to draw her clones in again, but Xana'nth appeared from his left wielding a huge obsidian hammer, floating above him, shimmering with ethereal energy.
"Shadow Art, Graviton Crush"
At the same time, Elial invoked another ability. A mass of flames erupted around him. They blazed with a blinding blue light, before tightly compressing into a superheated Lazer beam that shot towards Demon Lord.
"Flame Art, Burning Star" Elial roared.
Zekorath was immediately caught between a rock and a hard place, these were his general's...no, his opponent's, most powerful abilities. However, all that did was hardened his resolve.
"You take me for a fool." he muttered darkly.
Uriz's clones, had already recovered and came sprinting towards Zekorath from behind, while she approached head on. They cornered him and jumped in for an attack. Yet all these attacks never reached Zekorath. Instead they watched their attacking limbs unravel in front of them with utterly confused looks on their identical faces.
"Soul Art, Bloodlust" Zekorath whispered the ability, like the name of a beast that is truly to be feared.
Xana'nth's obsidian hammer and the concentrated flame lazer were shredded in an instant. Then the room was suddenly filled with multiple thin wispy filaments of blood, lazily floating in the air.
Uriz's clones, who had watched their fists and legs get dissected, could not stop the forward momentum. So they were the first to fall to Bloodlust. The sound of multiple slashes could be heard even though Zekorath did not move a single muscle. With a wet sound, the pieces of his general's body plopped to the ground, her clones having instantly evaporated. She had been cut up into bite sized fragments in a second. Zekorath stabbed his blade through the gore, piercing her heart, before retracting it back into his body.
Everybody in the room stood still, not making a single move. Not because they didn't want to, but their bodies refused to put themselves in the danger that surrounded them. When the first phase of the ability was activated, their movement was stolen from them immediately. Elial and Xana'nth could feel their Lord's killing intent stifling their will. Knowing how they'd had to force their bodies to move against him earlier when he'd released his full rage, they instantly refused to move against this crazy show of power.
As a Dredge, Uriz had a tough and muscled frame. She was known for her iron tough body and yet for her to be demolished in that manner without effort. They knew they were in trouble now. The sweat running down their faces, eyes focused on every thread of blood floating around them, dripped to the floor in the eerie silence.
Zekorath finally relaxed his stance and moved freely, the blood around him cleared, creating a passage for it's master as he walked towards the frozen Xana'nth.
"This is the power I wield...general" he spat the last word, crouching down before the man looking at him with wide open eyes. Xana'nth's lips were trembling as those bloodthirsty eyes bore into his own. Zekorath's face was full of rage, his teeth bared like an animal. He could feel the hot breath of the angry Demon Lord on his face.
"I could end your lives in an instant." Zekorath growled menacingly.
"I could end the lives of every single Nether being that tried to stand against me. However I'm the Lord. What good would it do to parade this power? To kill needlessly? Does that serve any purpose besides the fulfillment of your twisted lust for death?"
Xana'nth couldn't answer. As a matter of fact, nobody could. They had no reply. The situation was dire and at this point, they could already consider themselves dead. A loud gulp was heard coming from Elial as he licked his dry lips.
"I'm sorry it had to come to this my friends." Zekorath stood up, resolve never wavering. His face suddenly turned into an emotionless mask.
"Your personal problems are not bigger than this realm. I also have a personal mission that I must fullfill. Therefore, with this, we part."
The panic level in the Chamber skyrocketed. The last two generals facing certain death were finally beginning to doubt their actions. They had brought a dark punishment upon themselves and they had no choice but to face it. Their lust for shedding blood had put them up against a force they couldn't comprehend. Elial and Xana'nth were assured of their annihilation and awaited the end, lamenting silently. Yet the end never arrived.
Instead, the Chamber of Lords started shaking violently. Pieces of the library roof fell down around the surprised faces of its occupants, their fight temporarily forgotten. The walls cracked and various artifacts fell to the ground. Books seemed to shiver and started falling down, devoid of their usual magical energy. Zekorath belatedly realised that he didn't have time to spend fighting betrayers. His realm was on the verge of unknown destruction and he had to deal with it before it caused even more damage, whatever it was. He was a bit reluctant to kill his friends still, but they couldn't be forgiven for this transgression. With this he would instantly end it.
As he was about to invoke the detonation of his ability, a loud tearing sound could be heard and a space in the centre of the chamber twisted. The atmosphere convulsed and split open, as if reality had been torn by an invisible hand. A light flared, pulsing from within the tear in reality. It had a high intensity of brightness, however with each pulsing second, it's intensity increased.
"What is this?" Zekorath muttered in confusion, his eyes shielded behind his hand, from the glare of the mysterious light. The quaking ground also seemed to intensify and then, with a loud sonic boom, an invisible force erupted in the centre of the Chamber, flinging the occupants away like ragdolls. Zekorath's body flew through the iron throne and into the wall behind him with a resounding crash. He couldn't defend himself in time and suffered intense damage.. He grunted in intense pain, coughing up blood, his body sagging down to the floor. He tried to keep his consciousness from fading. He blinked once. Twice. Then suddenly...
He was in a completely dark empty void.
"What!?" his voice echoed as he floated in an endless void. Attempting to move, even though he couldn't see anything in his surroundings, Zekorath realised that his body was frozen for some reason. He couldn't move a single muscle no matter how hard he tried. Still buzzing with the pain from crashing through the Chamber, his brain was obviously puzzled at these events. It took a little while before he could start thinking a little bit clearer.
'I have to defend myself. This could be a plan by Xana'nth or Elial. I need to be alert.'
Trying to cast an ability, Zekorath instantly felt a searing sharp pain tear through his chest. The air caught in his throat as he desperately tried to breathe. It was a pain akin to having his heart ripped out of his chest while he was awake.
With a loud pained bellow he felt mana leaving his body. Something was sucking his power in this void. He felt his energy dissipating painfully. He could even make out it's glow in his blurry vision. An intricate ethereal rope of crimson and blue mana particles streamed out of his body.
When he blinked, the scenery changed again. He was now floating under a sky full of bright, blinking starts. Deep purple hues mixed into the cerulean blue and black of the scenery surrounding him. He felt weak and defeated. Confused. For the first time ever since he took the throne, he felt scared.
"Where...am...?" Zekorath tried to speak, yet again, couldn't manage to utter the rest of his words as he felt his body change. Zekorath had three cores that mediated the power he contained in his body. A Pyro core for his Fire Art, an Onyx core for his Dark Art and the Bloodborne Blood Core. He felt them being sealed, one by one. The already intense pain of his essence being ripped from his body only intensified.
The sealing of a Nether beings' cores was unheard of and immensely painful. It felt as if Zekorath's heart was being gripped by a fiery hand each time a core was sealed. He was rapidly loosing consciousness. Trying to keep his eyes open, he mentally fought the dark haze that had appeared at the edges of his vision. The haze responded in kind and kept widening with each wave of burning pain. He felt his bones dislocate and his skin seem to pull tighter around his body. Unbeknownst to him, his body was transforming, or more accurately, devolving back into his Inkling form. With a final huff of breath, he finally succumbed to the darkness and passed out, floating in a dark void.
××××××××××
He didn't know how long it had been since he'd lost consciousness and when Zekorath slowly regained his senses, he was sprawled on a hard surface. There was a bright moon shining through a broken window in front of him. With a groan, he sat up and warily gazed at his new surroundings.
"Where am I?! Huh!!!"
When he spoke, his voice did not emerge as the awe inspiring and powerful deep baritone in which he usually spoke. Instead, it was a high pitched tone reminiscent of his younger self. When he looked at his body he found himself surprised at his form.
"I'm in my Inkling form!!? How!? What is happening to me?!" He whispered the confused words to nobody in particular. This had never happened to him before. Having his abilities and cores mysteriously sealed and transformed back into his Inkling form, his confusion was expected.
"Is this something Xana'nth and Elial did?!" He wondered if his generals had used some ability to achieve this, however he knew them well and none of them possessed the power to do this. With a huff, he resigned his confused mind to his surroundings.
He stood in what appeared to be a building. It was created of concrete and the destroyed window before him was made of a tempered thin glass which littered the floor around him.
Zekorath looked down both ends of the hallway he was in, then tried to gather mana into his body. What he drew in though, was not the mana from the Nether realm. His body instantly rejected it. The energy felt foreign. Denser and much more concentrated than what he was used to.
"This is not the Nether. Just where am I?"
He instantly realised that he could not be in his realm. He would've been able to draw mana from anywhere in his dimension. Which meant he was in a totally foreign place. Lost and confused.
"I have to figure this out, but first I need to get some blood. I can't use this energy in the air and my powers won't activate with the blood in this body."
Existing with his cores sealed was something Zekorath had never faced before. Instinctively, he knew he needed mana to use his Fire and Dark cores. However, his Blood core operated differently since it was tied to his heart as part of his species trait, the Bloodborne. To reactivate it, he needed a vast amount of blood, which he couldn't currently produce without his abilities. Right now all he could activate was his Blood Sense to monitor his surroundings and shifting his current reserve of blood to enhance different parts of his body.
Which meant he had to hunt.
Deciding so, he took a tentative step down one end of the hall but suddenly stopped. A muffled thud could be heard echoing briefly in the emptiness. He stood still and circulated blood to his ears, enhancing his hearing.
Again, another thud, from the direction he was facing, followed by sobs.
"That could be a potential source of blood."
Zekorath started moving towards the sound. The hallway he was in diverted before him and, following his senses, he turned down the left hall. The sobs got louder and with his blood sense, he could make out a strange being prostrating itself on the ground further down the hall.
Approaching slowly and as silently as he could, Zekorath could tell that this being's blood was different from his own. The method in which it travelled in that body was very different to his kind. This was clearly not a demon.
Paying closer attention, Zekorath felt something further irregular in this being. It seemed it's blood pulsed from one organ and there was a certain lack of iron in it.
'Strange. No cores. No mana. This blood is also ailed. This is very strange.' he thought to himself. Zekorath could simply purify and change the constitution once he ingested it. The main issue was his being in a foreign place with not a single mana signature and with his abilities locked. He didn't really know what taking the blood would do to him at this point. He could even suffer.
'Then I guess, instead of ingesting it, should I just control the host instead?'
Zekorath had an option he could use in this case. Since the blood of this being appeared weaker than that of demons, he could use a wound to shift his own blood into the body of the host. That way he could influence it's central nervous system which would make taking it down much easier.
This method was too cowardly for a demon. Even to Zekorath who wasn't a blood crazed fiend, let alone a Demon Lord.
'That way, maybe I could find out what sort of energy is used in this...place too.'
Spurred on by this hope, Zekorath slowly approached the figure on the ground. He moved stealthily and silently padded towards his prey, his hunter instincts focused.
When he got closer, however, the being moved and unfurled from it's position on the ground, scrabbling back from him on hands and feet.
'How did it...'
Zekorath had shifted his blood into his legs, giving him complete control of his movements. He had been very light and careful in his approach. How had this thing noticed him?
Then it stood up and instantly grew much taller than Zekorath, towering above him like a giant, anxiety and fear apparent on its face.
"Human! You're a human?!" Zekorath blurted out in surprise.
The realisation of his location just caused further confusion. He had read about this realm before, he'd seen the sketches and theories on the anatomy of the humans of Earth. He had never thought he would meet such a thing though, as their dimensions were so far removed from each other.
"Is this Earth?" he immediately asked the human.
No reply came from the wide eyed giant. It tried to speak yet Zekorath obviously couldn't understand the word it said. He could feel the man's heart pumping furiously in his chest. He could even see his blood cursing through his body.
'Well that's strange.' Zekorath thought, cocking his head.
The blood travelling the man's body had started to change. It seemed to glow with faint particles of a purple aura. Was it also getting stronger? What is this?
'I should attack before I lose my chance.' Zekorath decided. With that, he unhinged his lower jaw, as most of his kind did when hunting as Inkling. It helped to attack large prey in a single blow. A human was much bigger than him right now in this form, but he only needed to hurt it then shift his blood.
With that in mind, Zekorath jumped towards the confused man, aiming for his neck.