Strike the Blood - Volume 20 - Chapter 1.2

2

“First, for slipping past my Sorcery Corps, allow me to praise…you.”

With a laugh and a lighthearted tone of voice, the girl on the back of the divine bird spoke.

Mysteriously, even though Shio and the others were flying at high speed, they could hear her voice with perfect clarity.

But it was her statement that shook Shio far more than that. She had identified the Sorcery Corps of the Fallen Dynasty as hers.

“A metallic dragon, plus Attack Mage girls… A rather amusing combin…ation. Most interest…ing.”

She raised her right hand aloft as she praised them with an innocent smile on her lips.

The next instant, a crimson mist enveloped her entire body—a miasma of fresh blood imbued with dense demonic energy.

The spreading blood mist distorted in thin air and filled their vision, then took on the form of countless beasts. These masses of demonic energy were so dense as to possess sentience—a vampire’s Beast Vassals.

“Beast Vassals?!”

“She summoned that many all by herself…?!”

Yuiri and Shio exclaimed this simultaneously.

The Beast Vassals resembled prehistoric winged dinosaurs. Their numbers cleared a hundred with ease. Compared to Glenda in her dragon form, their frames felt on the small side, but since they were collections of demonic energy, size didn’t correlate at all with their combat prowess. Besides, there were simply too many of them. There was no need to even try to calculate the difference in combat strength. It was clear at a glance they had no chance of winning in a straight-up fight.

“Avrora, hold on tight!”

“I-indeed…!”

Taking heed of Yuiri’s warning, Avrora desperately clung to Glenda’s back.

At almost the exact same moment, the dragon engaged in highly acrobatic evasive maneuvers.

At this juncture, their precious ritual spell camouflage was worthless. Shio released the barrier, using its spiritual energy to scatter as many shikigami as she could create instead. As far as she was concerned, no matter how little they helped, the more chaff thrown up against the demon beasts, the better.

“Rosen Chevalier Plus, Boot Up—!”

Drawing her beloved sword from her back, Yuiri turned toward the direction of Glenda’s advance and swung her blade downward.

Rosen Chevalier Plus, which used ritual magic to rend space itself, was one of the few divine armaments effective against vampiric Beast Vassals. She shot down one of the winged dinosaurs circling in front, which allowed Glenda to break through the encirclement by force.

“Hurry, Glenda!”

“Dah!!”

Not even waiting for Shio to speak, the dragon earnestly flapped her wings to shake off the demon beasts’ pursuit. Since they weren’t bound by the laws of physics, however, the Beast Vassals’ speed proved overwhelmingly superior. They surrounded Shio and the others more and more, barring their escape route.

At this rate, it would be only a matter of time until they were captured—the instant Shio thought that, Glenda roared.

“Wh-what the…?!”

“Glenda?!”

She let out a cry that sounded like a girl’s shriek, sending Shio and Yuiri into confusion. Up to that point, she’d never screamed that way while in dragon form.

But she hadn’t just let loose a shout. In response to the dragon’s roar, space shimmered, then a steely shadow spread forth from out of nowhere.

Pouring out of that shadow was a new horde of demon beasts.

They were grotesque monsters with heads resembling those of hornets and bodies like serpents, plus wyvern-like wings. They belonged to a new genus of demon beast whose existence had yet to be announced to the world—but Shio and Yuiri knew their names.

After all, they had encountered identical demon beasts once before.

“H-houda?!”

“Don’t tell me, she summoned them from Nod…?!”

Yuiri and Shio were beside themselves as they gazed at the horde of creatures that had suddenly manifested.

At the bottom of Kannawa Lake in Tangiwa, these demon beasts from Nod had protected the sealed Glenda—and now the dragon had summoned a fresh horde of them after falling into peril.

Shio and Yuiri hadn’t noticed until this very moment that their mount possessed this ability. In fact, it was highly probable that Glenda herself hadn’t known.

Although her letting them loose wasn’t a cause for celebration, there was no doubt whatsoever the emergence of the houda at that very moment had saved the trio.

While the demon beasts fought the houda, Glenda was approaching Itogami Island’s urban areas. If she could hide in the shadows of the buildings, even Beast Vassals would have a hard time keeping up with her. If the girl launched indiscriminate attacks enveloping urban areas that might be another story, but short of that, this had to be their chance to escape.

“Shio! That bridge!”

“I get it…! Glenda, please!”

When Yuiri pointed at a bridge spanning the canal inside Itogami City, it was all Shio needed to know exactly what she was planning.

To shake off the demon beasts pursuing them, the steel-colored dragon dived as far as the surface of the canal all at once. Kicking up water spray in place of a smoke screen, she crept under the huge bridge.

“Glenda! Revert!”

“Daaaaaaahh!”

The instant she hid under the main girder, Yuiri gave the signal for Glenda to release her dragon form.

Her wings vanished into thin air, and her tail was enveloped by a silver twinkle as it, too, faded away. Then her huge body precipitously shrank and transformed into the figure of a naked girl. Of course, this meant everyone riding tilted forward as they were cast into the air. It was like going from a drop to an almost dead stop before switching to a rise, but the blow was pronounced nonetheless. They lost their breaths from the drop and the sudden deceleration.

“Hold on, Avrora Florestina!”

Using physical enchantment to boost her strength to its limit, Shio supported Avrora as the latter almost went flying. In turn, Yuiri wrapped Glenda in an identical embrace, before making a heavy landing atop the foot of the bridge.

“Urk…let there be shadow—!”

Although her bones and tendons rippled with unpleasant sounds, Shio ignored them as she instantly began unleashing spell tablets. Pouring the scant remainder of her spiritual energy into it, she created a large shikigami.

This familiar adopted the form of a mock dragon like Glenda, then flew out from under the bridge in Shio’s and the others’ stead. Acting as a decoy to draw away the other demonic beasts, it proceeded to fly over the ocean.

“Are you hurt, Avrora…?”

Letting out short, ragged breaths, Shio asked that of the blond-haired vampire in her arms.

“N…no tortuous fall from heaven may harm mine flesh…”

Avrora coughed weakly as she replied, her almost-inaudible tone contrasting with her elaborate vocabulary. As demons went, vampires were far from the stoutest. And since she hadn’t received training of any kind, the reckless, abrupt deceleration she’d just spoken of must have been a considerable burden.

“I’m glad. Glenda’s all right, too, huh.”

Confirming that the demon beasts had passed them by, Yuiri let out a sigh of relief.

She was grimacing ever so slightly from dropping on a maintenance landing under the bridge. Her leg hurt from when she’d cushioned Glenda upon impact.

“Yuiri, your leg…”

Realizing that her friend was dragging her right leg, a look of worry came over Glenda.

Yuiri put her own school blazer over Glenda while giving her a strong smile.

“I’m all right; it’s just a minor twist. More importantly, we have to get out of here fast.”

“Yeah…but it doesn’t seem like they’ll let us go that easily.”

Shio bit her lip as she looked behind them.

Mixed in with the sound of the wind blowing under the bridge was a faint flapping of wings and a jeering voice.

“You will not get…away.”

The voice of the girl in the red dress made Shio and Yuiri reflexively draw their weapons.

Dancing from the skies above, the Simurgh elegantly came to a quiet stop, hovering above the canal water’s surface.

The figure sitting sideways atop its back broke into a bewitching grin. Though the decoy shikigami had fooled the demon beasts, apparently their master wasn’t so easily fooled.

“Dragon of the Swamp, familiar of Cain the Sinful God, to think we would meet in such a…place.”

The girl in the red dress stared at Glenda, the corners of her shapely lips rising like those of a cat.

The former dragon’s silvery hair seemed to stand on end as she glared at the girl to intimidate her. But it was readily apparent that this was nothing more than a hollow threat.

“I guess the houda from earlier made her take interest in Glenda, huh?”

“We’re lucky she didn’t notice Avrora instead.”

Yuiri replied to Shio’s murmur with a tiny voice.

I wonder, went Shio as she twisted her lips. Certainly, the girl in the red dress had yet to notice Avrora’s presence. But if she captured Shio and the others here, it amounted to the same thing. It was only a matter of time before her identity would be exposed.

However, Yuiri was thinking along different lines than Shio.

“Sorry, Shio. Glenda and I will be decoys and buy time. While we’re doing that, take Avrora and run.”

“Yuiri?!”

Shio looked at the face of her best friend in surprise.

“No! There’s no way I can let you…!”

“You mustn’t forget our objective. It’s to take her to Kojou, right?”

“Ghh…”

Yuiri’s calm assertion left Shio’s words caught in her throat.

Let everyone get captured right then and there or have only Shio and Avrora escape—there was really only a single option. To allow Avrora to escape safely, the moment when the girl in the red dress’s focus was trained upon Glenda was their sole opportunity.

“Are you done…conversing? Do make this…entertaining.”

The girl in the red dress mischievously inquired, as though mocking Shio’s melancholy.

Spreading both arms wide, a mist of fresh blood enveloped the girl once more. The miasma then transformed into new Beast Vassals, which dropped to the ground and surrounded Shio and company.

Shio wondered if it was right to compare them to birds walking on two legs. It would probably be more accurate to say they resembled deinonychus or the velociraptor.

Each Beast Vassals’ body length was under three meters. However, they were easily more than two hundred strong in number.

“Don’t tell me… Are these all her Beast Vassals…?!”

Shio felt dizzy from sheer despair.

Vampires weren’t limited to one Beast Vassal a person. The Fourth Primogenitor had twelve Beast Vassals. It was said that Ki Juranbarada, the First Primogenitor, was served by no less than seventy-two.

But the amount of Beast Vassals that the girl had summoned before their eyes was literally on another level.

This was different than a single Beast Vassal divided into pieces, like Velesh Aradahl’s Ghoula.

No, this was a horde of Beast Vassals in the hundreds, and each member possessed its own complete sentience so they could hunt based on individual judgment. And this girl was able to summon and freely control them all by herself.

The vast, off-the-charts amount of demonic energy she exuded made her identity crystal clear.

This was Fallgazer—

Aswadguhl Aziz, the Second Primogenitor, ruler of the Dominion known as the Fallen Dynasty.

“Don’t, Yuiri…! She’s—no, that lord is—”

“Go, Shio! Quickly!”

Shielding Glenda behind her back, Yuiri hurled a silver spell tablet and turned it into a shikigami. As the familiar took the form of a wolf, the bewildered Shio and Avrora mounted its back and set off running.

She’d turned her blade against the Beast Vassals of a vampire primogenitor—of course, Yuiri had to have understood the implications of that. Even so, the two girls had remained behind so that Shio and Avrora might escape.

“Dah!!”

Glenda transformed into a dragon once more to hold the horde of Beast Vassals in check. Perhaps she was trying to summon another mob of houda. Cloaked in the shadow of the enormous dragon, the silver shikigami Shio and Avrora rode sprinted off, climbing over the embankment to slip into the warehouse district along the coastline.

A large explosion echoed. Shio no longer had any idea what was happening behind them.

“Shio Hikawa…I…”

Head beneath a hood, the vampire girl swayed on the shikigami’s back as she raised a quiet voice. She probably felt responsible for leaving Yuiri and Glenda behind as they fled.

“It’s fine, Avrora.”

Still tightly clenching a fist, Shio put her other hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“It’s Yuiri. She’ll be all right… She’ll be all right.”

Murmuring these words as if trying to convince herself of that, Shio steered the familiar Yuiri had entrusted to her as they continued to escape.

A cold, hazy morning’s mist enveloped the girls in white.