Kael Cor: A Vampire's Awakening Chapter 374 Yursk III : The Slave Merchan

I went straight for the leader of the group of guards, it was his and his partners pretense of a fight that annoyed me the post apart from seeing the wood sprites like that. I landed right in front of his bandit friend and proceeded to unceremoniously shove my hand straight through his chest and out his back, the look of shock and fear on his face was quite worth it. I flung his dying body sway, making him fly like he was made of nothing but paper; his already broken body smashed hard into a few trees leaving massive bloody smears, and when his body came to a stop, it was a completely unrecognizable lump of flesh and bone.

I shoved my leg forwards against the tower shield of the leader of the guards, sending the massive metal into his chest and nose. There was a satisfying crunch before his body was blown away and came crashing into the paved brick highway, digging bloody furrows in it as his back was scrapped raw. He didn't get back, which was understandable, I just use the ground as a cheese grater on his back.

At the very least, now I had everyone's attention. I smiled at the remaining guards and bandits almost apologetically, like I didn't mean for what just happened to happen. But then again I did mean for it to happen, which was why when one of the guards sent an arrow charged with energy at my face, I caught it, snuffed out the energy, charged the arrow with my own aura and then sent it flying back at the guard and the two bandits that were standing right beside him.

The arrow exploded the archer into bloody chunks, and still had enough damage to completely ruin the two bandits besides him. His exploded body and bones served as shrapnel that shredded their body and their insides. They were both dead before they reached the ground. I turned to the remaining bandits and said to them.

"Usually this is the part where you bozos start running away. However it wouldn't help, you're all already dead anyway.(BREAK!)" 

There was a sharp pain at the back of my head, but it was only for a moment as I literally spoke the power of a rune into existence. The sir around us was charged with power, some of the trees on one side of highway wilted and died at a rapid rate, while on the other side they grew massive, succulent, lush and even more green than was considered normal. As for the remaining guards and bandits, they faded away into dust, as their bodies were broken down all the way to last atom and molecule. The only person left standing was the merchant. I turned to him with a smile, I guess it's time for a little conversation.

I sped over to him grabbed him and sunk my teeth into his neck, his frightened shriek rang out across the entire forest as his less than palatable blood dribbled into my throat and out the side of my chin. I could see his memories, I read them off his blood and his soul, to be honest this was a vampiric ability that's not been to explored by me, seems it's going to come very much in handy on this world, I'm not sure I had the patience to ask questions when I could actually just get the answers I needed swiftly and efficiently.

Maybe it wasn't that civilized going around and drinking blood just to find things out, but I'm a god, who's going to scold me. The merchant was not that much of a bad person....well as opposed to the other merchants on Shearath that is. This guys is a useless waste of space, the spoils sixth son of the biggest merchant family on this planet, which by the way the locals call Yursk. He's live his life on the edge and has had everything provided for him, at least until his father fell sick, and the battle for who gets to inherit his massive empire ensued between his children. So the father gave a task to his children, whoever could build an empire or at least a merchant company qualified of making sustained long term trade with his own businesses and that of a few kingdoms, would become his heir.

But there was also the catch of the fact that if someone else outside of the family fulfills even half of those conditions in under one year, then that person gets the fortune. And if after a year there's no growth from his children or from any random total stranger with dreams to become a merchant, then he was going to distribute his wealth amongst the poor within the kingdom, and that was something that rubbed all of his children the wrong way.

And so unlucky number six here decided to foray into the most lucrative business on the planet.....slave trade. The dungeons below the surface were entire kingdoms and mountains, rivers, valleys, forests and cities. So far only the first two floors of the planet has been mapped, and even then there were places that most people have not been in before. Magical creatures from the depths of the dungeon floors were captured and sold to the surface races, technology and infrastructure was just beginning to experience a boom, so there was a constant need for manpower, and no other place had an abundance of such resources than the dungeons.

But manpower was not the only thing these slaves were good for, there were wars happening constantly, especially on this continent, and there were no better tools for wars than the captured races of the dungeons. This group of wood sprites were taken from a small crafting village a few days journey south of the entrance to the third level. They were no warriors amongst them, which made them easy pickings for Mr. Entitled and stingy here.

Even though they were his slaves, he had left them in terrible living conditions, and the journey from the third level back to the surface world had taken them eight months as a whole due to his incompetence and complete stupidity. Of a caravan carrying three hundred healthy wood spirited, he was left with thirty of them, the young and the old having died out due to the harshness of the journey.

He was a monster. But he was not my kill.

I pulled back and spat out the residue of his blood in my mouth, it was disgusting and I regretted I even placed any part of my body near this fool in the first place. I threw him on the ground, ignoring the stench that wafted off his body, I guess he was so scared he lost control of his bladder and bowels. Well he could blame him, I had that effect on quite a few people after all, especially those that seemed to have pissed me off.

I went to the cages holding the wood sprites and placed a hand on it. My soul rune (BREAK) spread out across it's frame, breaking and twisting the metal until all that was left was dust and the wood sprites found themselves sitting on the ground. Even though I just used it, and commanding that much power always took a toll on me, I called out the rune again.

"BREAK!"

My head buzzed and my vision went blank for a minute before finally settling down. I had sealed my powers/godly energy. Using skills that otherwise belongs to a god in a body that's devoid of the energy to power it was suicide. But it was my own power, which is why I could hold on as much as I did.

"You're are free, but your freedom is not really your own unless you take it for yourselves. There's the one responsible for all your pain, this is my second gift to you this day. Do with him what you will."

I was feeling really benevolent today, plus I'm feeling a little woozy so I'm not in the mood to kill this bastard myself, so why not let the people he has cheated out of a happy life, and condemned into an existence of pain and suffering; get a chance at reaching their own revenge. It won't hurt as much as what I would have done to him, but at the very least it would leave them satisfied and him very fucked up.

The wood sprites were creatures of magic, their ability to command the earth and the life within it was quite admirable.

They summoned massive earth and wooden spikes that stabbed into multiple places in the merchant's body, some places had me clenching places that shouldn't be clenched at the moment. Since I'm the one torturing someone, it was downright terrifying to watch it happen to someone else.

And then they tortured him, slowly, methodically and with even more finesse than I thought possible for a torturer. I stood there with them, watching as they went through every evil and painful thing they could think off to do to him. They cried just as he cried, screamed just as he screamed. They didn't stop even when he had died as they made sure to mutilate his body as much as they could. The sun went down and the twin moons of this planet rose up all the way to it's peak before they finally stopped in exhaustion.

And when they turned to me, I fell forward passed out before I hit the ground, I guess I really shouldn't have used my rune speech ability twice in a row like that, it's left me feeling really under the weather. But either way, maybe a little nap can help.

Chapter end