Chapter 294 - Tarnished Blood
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"Are you sure about this, Haruki?" Days before the battle with Dominion, hungry for power Haruki traded the very blood in his body for poison. "You will die if you drink from the chalice."
Asmodia's warnings were not the least concerning for him, for he had figured out a loophole to continuously revive himself after dying. Yet fearing things might get a little tricky, Asmodia wanted him to think his plans through before going forward with what he was about to do.
"Only one of us can die at a time, and their soul travels into the other's vessel, correct?" standing before the blood chalice filled with the tainted blood of the creator, Haruki pressed his onto its side and shifted his gaze to Asmodia to the side.
"That's right, but, even I think drinking that is an insane idea!" Asmodia complained.
Thankfully, all alone in an isolated dungeon portal, there was nobody to overhear their conversation or even watch Haruki commit to his own death. Having already created a clone for Asmodia which could temporarily house her soul before corroding from her strength, all he had to do was gain immunity to the poisonous blood.
"For now, that body of yours is also part of me, as long as I can be revived before the clone corrodes, we're both going to be fine and I'd be much stronger coming on the other end," hoping to drain power through the contact of the blood much like he'd done with the dragon scale to turn into a dragon, Haruki was completely blindsided to the side effects that the poison may carry.
Letting out an exhausted sigh, Asmodia shook her head in defeat and decided to step away from the poison chalice. Conjuring a chair under her, she sat down at a safe distance in case Haruki's poisoned body began oozing the toxins onto her.
'Drinking a dead god's blood, and willing to die, I suppose I severely underestimated how much he desires strength after Moriyana died before him.' Keeping her own emotions shadowed under a veil of indifference, the mistress of darkness was letting her heart rot from the inside out. Gone with her daughter was her longing to create, which in turn made her affinity to creation utterly useless. 'She was…My best specimen.'
Brushing it all off her mind, Asmodia focused on the sight in front. Flying over the rim of the chalice, Haruki scooped out the poison in a glass potion vial. Then getting back onto the ground, he took a deep breath and began downing the entire bottle.
"Slow down time so my body has more time to get garner immunity," Haruki requested, his eyes turning dark already.
"You've picked your poison, who am I to deny you suffering?" Slowing down time, Asmodia prepared herself to watch the most grueling deaths in her life.
***
"Tainted blood!" Held in Dominion's transformed arms of mercury, Haruki unleashed the poison that had now replaced his own blood.
Seeping into Dominion's body, the blood quickly tainted even the poisonous mercury. And by the time the three demons finally hit the ground alongside the crumbling rubble, the entirety of Dominion's hands were painted in a gruesome red that ate away at his malformed body.
"Aughhh! Wha-Gurrhh!" As if a fire was burning under his skin, Dominion was forced to let go of the unbearable pain. Growling out the hurt from beyond the closed portals, he unintentionally announced his suffering to the entire world. "WHAT IS THIS?! IT BURN!"
Free from the giant hands, Haruki blinked his eyes a few times to drive the poison away from the sclera of his eyes. Once the dark area turned back to white, he helped Riley get back to her feet with shadow hands. Asmodia on the other end, has already gotten back on her feet and was busy dusting the rubbles off of her dress.
"Where the hell is he now?" Asmodia asked, seeing no open portals around them at all.
As if answering her call, a giant pair of metal arms sprang right out of a portal above them. Still bleeding with poison, they formed into fists and thrashed right onto Haruki and his companions. However, this time, before the fists could make contact with them or the floor, the lord of lust combined the poison blood and darkness to create spikes that tore through the fist as they came down.
"Ugghhh! Y-You! You mortals!" Dominion screamed again as he retreated his arms back into the portal, but this time as it was stabbed right through his fist, he couldn't get it off of them.
'I'll need some time to compensate for the blood, that was the last of it for now.' Haruki conveyed to Asmodia through his mind.
Even though his body was teeming with toxins, there was a limit to how much he could produce at a time, and although he'd tried to conserve some of it by retreating it off his skin, the sudden attacks from the fists had forced him to use all of what was remaining.
"Now what?" Asked Asmodia, her strength is still heavily limited because of the corrosive nature of the clone.
"I call him back," speaking out casually, Haruki stretched his arm upwards and recalled the blood spikes to be absorbed back into him.
At first, nothing happened at all, but after a few seconds passed, the stabbed arms tore through the realm and dragged themselves toward Haruki's outstretched fists.
"What the?!" Shocked by the strange phenomenon, Dominion desperately tried to stay inside the realm tear, but with the spikes draining Haruki's blood inside him, his whole body was being drawn back to him.
Opening a giant dungeon portal right before his fingers, Haruki drew Dominion's arms inside, and slowly even revealed what was at the base of the countless hands. Forced out of the realm tear, a giant blob of gooey metal had conformed to be Dominion's transformation capable of creating countless mercury limbs that poisoned everything they touched.
However, since Haruki had acquired immunity to a much more powerful toxin, even his clone of Asmodia and him were completely fine dealing with the mercury. As for Riley, the very blessing that she had cursed not too long ago was keeping her from succumbing to the toxins.
"My strength it-" Losing more and more of his strength as the poison spread inside him, Dominion was on the verge of losing consciousness.
"Let me help," Asmodia said, conjuring up tentacle-like dark vines that jammed Dominion inside the portal against his will.
"Now stay there," closing the portal, Haruki curled his fingers into a fist and brought it closer to his thumping heart.
Drawing deep breaths to recover from the stress the poison had put him through, he was forced to take a knee, and just let the pain grip his every muscle. Like a water cramp in the legs, his body squeezed inward and even his brain was shot with a headache that blurred his vision in a mess of two.
"Rejuvi-"
Before he could heal himself, a sudden kiss from Asmodia on his cheeks, stripped the pain away. Confused, he looked at his shaky hands before turning to the queen of dark. Making her way towards Riley, she kissed her on the cheeks and healed what few wounds she had left on her body.
"That poison was your own choosing, I don't feel sorry for the hurt it causes you," Asmodia muttered, turning around to look at Haruki.
"I don't need your pity, I could've healed myself," Haruki complained in response before propping himself back on his feet.
"I don't mean to interrupt your banter, but there is a war still going on outside," being the voice of reason, Riley reminded the two of the current situation. "And master, if you don't mind me asking, can't just Dominion escape with his portal when he wakes up?"
Moving his head in a negating manner, Haruki laid out another part of his plan.
"Don't worry, I can manipulate the dungeon, however, I want, and since it's attached to me directly, I'll be pumping Dominion's body full of my own blood so he can't way up anytime soon," going even further, Haruki had already filled up an entire dungeon room with jars of his toxic blood; which Lulu the tentacle familiar was responsible to shoot into Dominion from time to time. "Anyways, let's get this war over and have the goblin queen start her research on that demi-god."
Opening a portal that led right outside the castle, Haruki walked through it with Asmodia and Riley in tow. Coming out on the other end, the three were standing at the now burning gardens that seemed to have been a site for a recent battle.
"The portal must be closed now, and with nobody to direct the army, the royal guards shouldn't last that long," grabbing Asmodia's hand abruptly, the lord of lust sucked her back into his body. "Riley, you go on ahead and tell Margarette to retreat with her troops, I'll meet up with Rose and Klian, those two must be itching to show off their full potential." 𝗯𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝘃𝐞𝐥.𝗻𝗲𝐭
Quickly giving out orders, Haruki took to the wind to finish this war that has been going on for far too long.