"What was that?" Mary asked after the strong winds and intense shockwaves died down, her gaze fixed on the rapidly dissipating mushroom cloud.
Greem held his arm forward and a line of red and black flew out of the haze, Allerdyce landing in his grip with an audible slap. "It's the elemental crystals they use. He swallowed them and self-destructed," he said, storing the spear and floating over one of the knight's satchels.
He opened it and retrieved two elementium crystals, one red and one blue. "Fire and ice are opposites… so interactions between them are always volatile. By ingesting them at the same time and adding his life force and blood essence to the mix, he turned himself into a human bomb."
Mary narrowed her eyes, the implications of such a resort not lost on her. "Can all of them use it?"
"No," Greem recalled what he observed in Ninther's insides with Meat Vision and shook his head. "Only Spellbreaker knights can. We have to also assume the Radiant and Dragon Knights can do it too."
On the topic of Second and Third Grades, the pretty vampire's face scrunched up in displeasure. "The clan… do they intend to sacrifice us?" she asked and stepped closer to Greem, a rare trace of worry on her features.
"Don't worry. We're not dying in this godforsaken place for some…" the body adept sighed, taking a deep breath to calm himself before grabbing his lover's hand and pulling her into an embrace. "Trust me on this. No matter what happens, we'll make it back. And we'll milk this war and the clan for everything they're worth."
They stood like that for almost a minute before separating, though they kept holding hands, doing so throughout the handling of the battle's aftermath.
The battle, (if it could even be called that) lasted less than five minutes.
While their numbers eclipsed the Adepts by five times, the knights remained on the back foot for nearly the entire duration of the clash, their coordination, well made armor, and durable shields the only reasons they lasted so long.
When it came to Strength and Physique, Greem outclassed them. Agility? Mary left the bumbling idiots eating her dust. As for Spirit, Anderson demonstrated why elementium Adepts should never be given the chance to unleash their long cast spells.
The only thing they exceeded Mary and Greem in was their attack power, and even then, it wasn't by a huge margin. The name Spellbreaker existed for a reason and was tied to this.
Their life force infused flame slashes inflicted burning, cutting, and physical damage on each successful strike, the vibratory aspect of pure life energy allowing the crescent blades to not only break through shields but damage whatever they struck internally.
It's why even Greem with his tough body and forcefield shielded his face and head when he rushed the knights. There was a genuine chance they could reap his life if they connected with his bare forcefield.
At the end of the day though, these attacks made them one-trick ponies propped up by powerful but trash (by Lethon standards) equipment. And one-trick ponies didn't survive in the plane of Adepts.
In a land where prior preparation decided the outcome of most battles, there was no way these bumpkin First Grades were ever going to win.
Both of them issuing precise commands to their personal labor forces, Greem and Mary found a relatively intact portion of the village and had their golems and blood thralls respectively gather and dump every valuable thing from the battle field in two piles.
The knights Greem spared but incapacitated were thrown together on the left, and the dead ones, their armor, weapons, saddles, satchels, and mounts on the right.
They both ignored the right pile entirely, leaving the job of picking out the valuables to Mary's blood servants while they kept their gazes locked on the pile of still breathing knights and engaged in silent conversation.
"Are you fully recovered?"
"Mmhmm. I'm ready."
Nodding to her, Greem went forward and grabbed three of the unconscious SpellBreaker knights and dragged them towards one of the last intact houses, while Mary whistled and directed three of her thralls to the left pile.
They went in and each came up with two witcher knights on their shoulders, the vampire having kept some of these low level guys alive since they were integral to what he was about to help her attempt.
She only hoped her power and blood essence were enough. As for Greem faltering in his part, the notion never crossed her mind.
Soon, she joined him in the house's main room, the three Spellbreaker's at her and Greem's feet and the unconscious regular knights thrown in a corner, Greem having cleared the space of any furniture.
Grabbing one of the First Grade's off the wooden floor and holding him by the hair, Greem pressed his fist against the latter's temple and put his mastering ring to work.
Mary's Embrace was more than a physical thing. The changes it wrought went deeper than the mere shift of one's genes and physiology to match a vampire's.
Who they were in their very souls experienced drastic transformations as well.
The Embrace drilled down to a target's deepest selves and infused in them not just the spiritual talents of the vampire race, but ingrained in them an unshakable loyalty to their sire.
Such a thorough and extensive change in mentality couldn't escape the chosen target's notice.
For the entire duration, they'd be fully privy to the process of how their bodies were remodeled and how their minds swayed to fit their sire's standards.
As a result, it was possible for an unwilling would-be thrall to resist the mental change, letting them obtain the physical benefits with none of the soul slavery.
Of course, with Mary being an Adept and all of her current thralls being regular—albeit… peak humans, they had no way to resist the bloody chains that pierced and wrapped all around their souls.
Only individuals on or above her level could resist the change and rebuff the ensnaring of their minds, and maybe their bodies. And that was the issue Greem took upon himself to tackle.
As part of his desire to keep his lover safe and aid her on her path, he used the master ring to support the battle on the mental and spiritual front, easing the portion of the Embrace's burden.
He rewrote the Spellbreaker's knight's mind completely, altering his identity and sense of self but keeping his skills, experience, and normal sensibilities intact, only the context surrounding how he acquired them changing.
After a few minutes of complete silence, he finished his work on Isaac, certain that the servant Mary succeeded in turning him into would be her most loyal, obedient, and protective.
His serious expression matching hers, he nodded at his lover to go ahead and tilted the freshly prepared subject's head back, jilting his head to open his mouth.
Mary nodded in return, her expression solemn and expectant as she pulled off her nailed gloves and bracer, storing them and bringing her wrist to her lips.
Her fangs pierced her skin and came away to reveal two bloody holes her regeneration should've taken care of.
Under the effects of her blood control abilities, she kept the holes open and concentrated on the core she formed in her chest upon advancing, forcing out some of her essence blood and driving them towards the holes.
Holding her wrist over the prepared knight's open mouth, she let the unusually vibrant blood drip into it, letting her ingrained vampire instincts guide the amount she delivered.
His fist still against the knight's temple, Greem noticed a spike in mental activity and channeled more life force into the ring, co-opting the "almost thrall's" motor functions.
The latter's eye snapped open suddenly as he shut his mouth, his limp arms and noodle legs suddenly going taut as the bloody chains gripped his body and soul.
Even with all the work he'd done, Greem expected some resistance, after all, this is the soul we were talking about. It was the deepest and most real part of a person.
Fortunately, the source of the muted resistance came from the awakened knight's confusion at the sudden intense changes he could feel swallowing him like a beast, not a deep seated part of him that hated heretics with a passion.
Though the Embrace was a form of genetic and spiritual manipulation that induced a radical shift in one's species and overall mindset, it didn't take very long.
The knight struggled for about a minute, after which his skin went a few shades paler and the brown in his irises gave way to the red in his new blood and soul.
Mary, who's brows were furrowed to the limit with concentration, eased up on her expression and sent Greem a weak smile, nodding and conveying her success.
Confirming the same thing through his connection to Isaac's mind and the presence of a blood red thread that linked him to Mary, Greem retracted his hooks from the freshly transformed thrall's mind and let him fall.
"Hun…hun…hung…" Isaac croaked and pushed himself up, gazing at his pale, trembling digits and calloused hands with confusion and need.
"Go on. Drink," Mary commanded through their blood connection, the completely spaced out thrall snapping his head towards her before snapping it again to where her intent directed him.
His irises brightened considerably and his gaze grew frenzied, his whole body moving on all fours towards the unconscious low level knights, his weight and unrestrained Strength eliciting cries from the wooden floor and also leaving faint cracks in it.
With no regard whatsoever for the men he formerly led and was a few minutes ago willing to die avenging, Isaac grabbed one and bit into his neck, making a mess as he got his first taste of the substance he'd subsist on for the rest of eternity.
The spectating duo moved their gaze from their handiwork to each other, sharing a quick look before moving on to the two remaining Spellbreakers.
Obviously, the next two Embraces were successes as well, but they left Mary completely drained, not even a drop of her essence blood remaining.
Luckily for her she had a barrel's worth of blood from the regular and Spellbreaker knights stored in her ring over the course of the battle, so recovering was only a matter of time.
Plus, Greem had crafted for her a device that she could connect with one the living Spellbreakers through tubes to keep him alive so long as she fed it food and magical crystals.
Her current personal wealth and overlord status in Blue Hillock City, when combined with this, meant that she now had an endless source of First Grade Blood.
Her blood servants, possibly through their connections to her, sensed their mistress' excitement and thus mirrored it when they prepared the knights and loot to leave.
For the three new thralls, they were currently unconscious, the blood they'd just fed upon working to bring their physical and racial changes to completion.
Under Mary's orders, the lower leveled thralls repurposed a few blankets, curtains, and ropes from the houses and wrapped her new servants and food source like buns or… corpses…
"Get going. I'll join you soon," she said to her transformed servants who grabbed the four bundles with their humanoid bat legs and flew into the air and out of the village.
She scowled at her old nemesis, Anderson, sparing him a brief glance before waving dismissively, "Follow them."
He bowed and complied immediately, a grayish whirlwind kicking up dust and leaves as it spun to life on his lower body. He soared into the air and quickly joined the thralls, not knowing he was rushing to his own slow and painful death.
As the leathery flaps that accompanied them grew fainter, she walked over to Greem, the latter seated on a raised earth chair and gazing intently at one of the last living Spellbreaker's laying naked on a long rock platform.
Perfectly aware of her presence, he didn't let her turn his head and did it himself, joining their lips together in a kiss that conveyed how much he loved her and everything the vampire couldn't express through words.
They enjoyed the tongue dance for a good minute, Mary reluctantly breaking it off with a shy expression, a worded whisper, and an instant vacation from the spot.
"I love you too!" Greem shouted, infusing life force into it to ensure his fleeing lover heard it.
Chuckling to himself, he brought his attention back to the heavily tattooed knight on the platform, specifically the artifact in the shape of a square belt buckle laying on his forehead.
He had dealt with the issue of his lover's safety and power. Now it was time to focus on his own.
The device was basically a piece of metal enchanted with Spatial, Spirit, and Evolution magic connected to a knowledge crystal that had been compressed and shrunken with Compression Synthesis.
By feeding it life force through one of the rings on his finger, he could aggressively scan anything it was attached to, obtaining information on whatever topic(s) he specified.
In this case, the scanner poked and prodded every inch of the knight's body and mind for any trace of information regarding their runic power system, Evolution magic in particular streamlining the data and doing away with any chaff.
In a little over ten minutes, the Veritas Scanner completed the search and compiled all the gathered information, ceasing its aggressive actions before blinking yellow.
Greem sucked the artifact into his palm, removed the tiny knowledge crystal, and slotted it into a port in his mask before slipping it on.
His lips stretched wide open when it processed the data and his eyes hit the projected screens.
'Bingo.'
****
Author's note:
If you want to read five chapters ahead and support me, you can do so here: patreon.com/MasterReigen