With her focus now entirely on the last Echlisiarchian, Arana slowly approached the horrified and frozne in fear girl. However, just a few feet from her prey, she stopped, and akwardly looked towards Rex.
"I dont think I want to just play with her for an hour or so. How can we make this into a long duration thing?"
"Well. you can always make her your slave and then enjoy a petty revenge every day, I suppose." Rex suggested, well aware of his own biasis regarding posibilities.
"Can you do it for me?" Arana asked with puppy eyes as she looked towards Rex.
Rex thought for a few moments, then respomded.
"I sure could, but I think I have a better idea."
"Well, what is it?"
"How about I place a blank on you, and see if it awakens your blood magic? In theory, I think it should work."
"Whats a blank?" Arana questioned, having a small inkling on what it could entail, but sensing nothing wrong at the one suggesting being her brother, she easily agreed. She did not even wait for Rex to explain what it supposedly does. Rex nodded in aknowledgement of her agreement, walked near her, placed a hand on an exposed part of her neck and activated the skill. A few moments later, Arana had the same blank mark as Rex's elven duo. And as Rex had asumed, the moments the mark was placed, a similar scene to the one he himself went through when he awakened his blood magic, happened. A barely visible outline of a serpentine creature flashed behind Aranas back, as she stood there for a few minutes, unmoving. Then, the focus returned into her eyes as the outline of the etheral creature dissipated.
"WOW!." Heavily exhaled Arana, as she understood quite a bit regarding the use of blood magic, the general application and even a few base spells regarding the art.
"Think you can brand her?"
"Yea, I think so." She responded and then grinned towards Rex. "And I both feel and understand what purpose the blank serves." With that said, she quickly hugged Rex, both thankfull for his help in awakening her magic, as well as the warm feeling she felt towards herself coming from him through the blank brand. He and his warmth was everything Arana needed right now. Someone to anchor her existence to, someone who cared, and Rex checked every box for the role. She could barely remember the warmth she felt way back when her parents still lived, and knowing that she once more had someone there for her who trully cared, was a bliss in of its own.
Rex quickly secured Raha with a few mana construct chains, ensuring the girl could not even try to slip away during the rather long hug, though it turned out to not be neccesarry. The girl was frozen for more reasons than one, not risking to incur the anger the two psychos in front of her. She just sat there, and only reacted to the pair of siblings once Arana ended the hug a while later. The smug smile on Aranas face did nothing to help the poor girl out of her frozen state and by the time she even started to return to a state of semi consciousness she was a already in Aranas grasp and enveloped in the red chains that looked so very similar to his own when he branded someone. Though there was quite the difference in the end result, as Rex noted, once the chains dissapeared and the brand had appeared on Rahas chest. Arana was notably winded, she was breathing quite heavily, as though she had just finished running a marathon and Rex could see just how empty her mana tank was currently.
Still, all that was of little importance, since she had achieved her desired goal regardless, as Raha quickly droped of the bed she had remained all this time in her naked form, quickly got on her knees, bowed towards Arana, and spoke.
"What are your orders master?"
Rex saw that the brand was rather crude and quite strict, affecting the personality quite a bit in the process, and understanding the reasong for the brand he, being the doting brother he apparently was, offered to modify said brand, to ensure Arana could get the satisfaction she wanted by claiming the girl as her own personal toy.
"Congrats Sis on your first succesfull branding. A solid brand for sure, but I think it probably in not up to par for what you might want from it for this particular woman." Rex spoke as he inspected the brand while reasuring the woman with a gentle touch to one of her shoulders.
"I believe you want to not affect her personality too much, while ensuring she follows your commands without question?"
"Indeed brother. That is what I desire. If you can, please show me how I could do better, to achieve said desired result."
"Sure thing. Watch closely." Rex responded and touched Raha with one hand, modifying the brand to better reflect the desire of his sister. A few minutes later, the brand had been modified and Arana examined closely the new brand and how it functioned. During his modifications, Arana had recovered a bit of her mana and energy and wasted no time to examine the new brand, all the while Rex was using his cosmic crows to drain his victims in the village around them.
Seeing the small frown on her face and understanding the reasons behind Aranas frown, her spoke to relax his sister.
"I know how out of reach such a complex brand might seem to you right now, but you have just barely come in contact and tried for the first time to use magic. The fact you succeeded in and of itself is already impressive, so be proud of that. Besides, with enough practise I believe you can get much further that just that, even if you cant actually reach my levels." and seeing her pout at his last words a bit, he added. "Dont worry sis, there is barely anyone who could even hope to reach my levels, so dont go comparing me with other people. And there are a few extra reasons for that."
Rex ponted at his eyes, and added. "There is a reason I have these eyes after all, even though our skill set is somewhat similar and we are siblings."
Arana felt the warmth and care from both his words and the blank brand Rex had marked her with, and that quickly erased her pout, replaced with a big and bright smile.
"En." Then she looked towards the naked Raha still kneeling, though not nearly as restricted and with no muddling of the slaves mind.
"Wanna have your way with her?" Innocently asked Arana, her though turning mischievous all the while she thought how to properly punish Raha for her transgressions towards her in the past.
"Would you really want me to dirty myself with her?"
"No, no, no. Sorry brother, I did not think that through." she quickly backpedalled, as she looked at Raha, soiled as she was by the fat and very dead tithe collector.
"Come, lets finish cleaning this place up and then we will head towards the city close to here. Rinne I think was the name."
"Wount they attack you on sight there brother?" Asked Arana as she clung to his arm, a worry displayed on her face.
"Dont worry about that sis, we will not interact with the city today, and when we do, it is not going to be a problem for us. For them however...." Rex lelt the rest unsaid, though judging by his grin, Arana concluded that it would not end well for the inhabitants of said city. She did not feel even the slightest bit of sadness or remorse for them though, having suffered enough at the hands of the citizens of this rotten world. No, she did not care for anyone besides her brother now, well maybee the girls he would eventually have by his side. Those she would have to inspect heavily and veto. No unworthy sow would ever get her paws on the only family she had just found in this empty and unforgiving world. Even better was her brothers willingness to allow her to exact her revenge. To slate her need to extract a pound of flex fromeveryone in the village.
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Now though, a while later, as Rex was slowly looting the place of what little it had and setting it on fire afterwards, Arana was deep in thought, her slave girl in a rather simple clothes now standing by her side. She had liked the feeling of returning the pain she had gone through. Liked to inflict pain on those who had hurt her. Whats more, her brother had spent quite a bit of energy to not only allow, but also assist on her efforts to actually sate her thirst for revenge, giving her the ability to continiue with vengence.
She wondered if she was trully so broken that pain of others was what would give her life a meaning, but said thought quickly dissapeared from her mind when she felt Rex standing by her side, and instinctively, she hugged him once again. An action she seemed to enjoy more and more with each succesive try. His warmth, his presence calmed her being, gave her this inexplicable happiness. No, there was more to life than just returning the pain she had gone throught tenfold. She would be happy as long as she could stay by his side. Forever.
With his looting and Draining complete, Rex stood besides his sister, as she once again hugged him and basked in the happiness she was experiencing with him so close. Rex was at a loss of what to do. His sister had almost ended her life, clearly having had reached a treshold point of no return. Luckaly, he had reached her just in time, and stopped it from happening. Then, she had went past another breaking point, that apparently awakened her latent bloodline, changing her demeanor quite a bit. The broken and suicidal sister of his had latched on the only ray of light she had just rediscovered, while damning her nation to destruction, just like he had. And just like Arana could feel the care and desire to protect her from Rex, he could also feel the desperate attachment she was feeling for him right now. So much so that he was just a tiny bit worried it could turn into an unhealthy carnal need as well. Though he was sure he could, if worst comes to bear, guide her towards the soothing touch of his girls in that case.
Rex was a man of culture, so while oyakodon was more than welcome, nay, an admirable pursuit, he was also of the belief that "Incest is wincest, as long as it is not Your family", so naturallty he would have to navigate the waters super carefully to help his sister heal from the mental scars she had aquired. Still, that was a problem for another day, and he would deal with it as it came.
As per Aranas request, the entire town was burning by the time the trio left it on the back of the giant eagle, their destination- the city of Rinne. Arana did not want any proof left behind of the monsters that had destroyed her family, hence the scorched earth back in the village. Raha was huddled behind Rex back, as small as she could make herself appear, hoping not to earn her masters attention as Arana was happily embracing Rex in yet another hug and told him things she could remember about their parents. Raha could see the methaphorical hearts beaming out of the other woman as she recounted things to her brother. If anyone heard her saying that the happy woman had been disecting the people of her village just hours proir, they would probably look at Raha as if she was a lunatic, and yet, she had no desire to actually learn the consequences of her own possible willfull actions. She was not even sure what she could actually do at this point that would not result in some incredibly agonizing pain, excluding fullfilling the orders given and keeping herself as small and non threathening as possible.
She had learned the hard way what happens as punishement for her disobedience, when she was thinking and trying to sneak away at one point from her new master. She was shuddering just remembering the excruciating pain she had experienced then, as well as the cold smile she recieved from Arana after the pain stopped wrecking her. It seemed the mark above her breasts, whatever it was, had made her into Aranas slave in every sense of the word and that was stinging her in a whole different way. Raha had grown up as the daughter of the village elder, having quite a lot of privileges and she had used them to its fullest.
She had been acting rather terrible towards Arana, what with her being the blood kin of a forsaken. She had learned a lot about the monstrosities that the forsaken were, how they would corrupt the world and all that, and now, she had seen just how much can a single one of them actually achieve. She had heard of Aranas baby brother being one. How upon birth the chief had taken the boy and brought him into the woods, as the curch law dictates. How her parents had soon after been burned for trying to reclaim the spawn. And she saw how Arana was then left alone, scraping by with her inherited knowledge over herbs from her mother. How she struggled, but still survived, despite Rahas and other villagers scorn and hatred.
Raha now was both gratefull, and at the same time not, for her own actions towards Arana. It was precisely because of said actions that she was even alive now, having earned enough anger from Arana that death was not apropriate enough of a punishement for her, or so had Arana decreed. There also lay the problem. While she was still alive, one had to argue if that was a life worth living, and if dying alongside everyone else was not prefferable. Then again, she was rather sure she could not even entertain the idea of ending her own life, lest the pain visits her once more.
So far, it had been rather humiliating, but not too terrible, if one disregarded the pain she had experienced when disobeying her orders, only having to lick Aranas feet at one point as the whorst chore. Of course her previous self would never had done it, but the prospect of experiencing the pain she had felt quickly changed her tune, ensuring that she would perform whatever order she would recieve from her master, and with a single warning, that now included masters brothers orders as well. Thankfully for her, the flight towards Rinne was rather uneventfull, with the two siblings huddled toghether on the birds back as Arana retold quite a few stories from her childhood. Raha was quite suprised with the birds speed though, since they reached the city in just a few hours- a feat not achievable with any sort of trasnsportation she was aware of.
Once at their destination and with their feet on the ground Raha noticed that the giant eagle was still staying there with them. It was barely past midday, so she was wondering where the army of her masters brother were, should they hope to pass the walls, as they were rather well manned and the gates were all closed as well.
"We will rest today sis, since I want to show you my girls, as well as have you relax and recover a bit more, as well due to the fact that my home is much better for your advancement, in both your mana pools size as well as your ability to concentrate." Rex spoke to Arana as they both were petting the eagle.
"Is your home so close? i thought Echlisiarchy would have hunted you down in such a case." asked in return Arana.
"Watch sis." Rex replied and opened a portal to his shard world and after his gesture, the bird was the first to croos the portal, then followed the three humans.
"Welcome to Elysium, our home." Spoke Rex once they were through and the two ladies were looking around in awe at the scenario. They were in the middle of an open air balcony of sorts, that loomed over a rather incredible and well maintained garden that had a few women tending to it at the current time. Both Raha and Arana could only gasp at the beauty of the girls, and it took no time for Arana to ask the obvious question.
"And which of the ladies below are my sisters in law?" Rex could sense a pout there, her complex and rather confused emotions regarding Rex showing some bite. Rex understood far too well her current situation, so instead of acting confrontational, he just smiled and beckoned Arana into his hug.
"Dont be hostile sister. I am not abbandoning you, besides, dont you want to eventually have a big and happy family? I can protect them all within this realm."
That though did wonders for the pouting woman, changing her face into a bright smile.
"Am I an aunt already perhaps, or soon be be one?" she asked excitedly.
"Not quite yet dear sister. I have been hard at work to grow stronger and attain a place where my family could grow and develop safely."
"Hmm." a small frown appeared on her face again, then after a few moments of thinking it dissapeard.
"I suppose that is the smart choice. Now, come, introduce me to my sisters in law."
"Yes, my lady. Please, follow me." Rex gestured for Arana to follow and his sister did as asked, with Raha always remaining close by. Both girls were flabergasted with the nimber of women Rex apparently had, though Rashuun and Izumi managed to placate Arana with promises of a lot of nieces and nephews, due to the numbers of girls, once Rex deems it safe to grant their passionate wish of carrying his children.
The rest of the evening was spent among quite a few of his girls, who were more than happy to welcome Arana among themselves. Rex even managed to slip away for quite some time alongside some of his women, who came back some time later radiating happiness and with flushed cheeks.