Yet another cry of anguish resounded in the inner courtyard of the castle as another of the mages fell, being torn apart by Rex blood serpents. He had to admit, they were incredibly vicious killing machines, since any blood drawn from their victims would regenerate and strenghten the magic construct. Their relatively slender bodies also allowed them to be used to comb any buildings and places a human might try to hide in, as well as their ability to zero in on blood, making them not only perfect killing machines in an atrition based fights but also as perfect hunting dogs, even if they were not actual living creatures. Yet another reason blood mages should be desired by any agressively expanding ruler, though Rex also doubted there were any other blood mage out there who had such an ability cooked up, making him even more unique than he already was.

Rex was strategically moving even within the castle, always reaching the places with S class fighters, while leaving the trash to his blood serpents to deal with. outside the inner castle, his constructs were still in full swing, exterminating everyone in sight, their 'spare for sampling' quality requirements notably raised, increasing the speed and eficiency of their culling rate. While mostly aware of the state of the city, Rex was just starting a fight with yet another warrior, like many before him, he too would soon fall. The man was rather skilled, being barely S class, judgeing by the young mans aura readings.

Rex was only feeling the young man out, deflecting and parrying the youths blows, Limitless still in its scabbard. With his ever growing power and sharper mind he had noticed just how easy it was for him to copy, or outright improve any fighting styles he was encountering, strenghtening his combat prowess each and every moment. As he was somewhat toying with the young man, having mostly learned the mans techiniques and even improving them in the process Rex also noticed the youngster was not from Echlisiarchy. The man looked somewhat of asian descent, as well as the gear he was wearing seemed heavily out of place for the color scheemes of the rapidly falling castle. Just as he was about to draw his sword from its scabbard, a panicked yell resounded from the door nearby, or whatever was left of it after one of his blood serpents had crashed through it.

"PLEASE LORD. HAVE MERCY!"

Amused by the panicked and desperate cry, Rex entertained the request for a moment, sliding the youngsters strike to the side effortlesly, using his opponents own style, and then ruthlesly smacked his oponent with the scabbard, sending him flying a few meters away. Then he looked at the owner of said desperate cry.

Dark caramel skin, white, long and lush, waist lenght hair and vibrant red eyes. The young woman was quite the beauty, dressed in a rather simple, but well crafted battle robe and holding a wand and a shield of similar quality as the robes. The girl was panting heavily, cleary just having fought one of his serpents, though none of the two had recieved any proper or lasting damage. It seemed the girl encountered teh serpent, was deemed worthy for proper evaluation, and then the serpent proceeded to capture her. Unlucklaly, both were peak A class, so the capture had not gone according to plan, as the girl was fighting the snake half heartedly, while moving in Rex's dirrection. And serpent stopped its attacks upon understanding the girls dirrections. Then it kept following the girl, now without attacking and only guiding her a bit.

"NERZU! STAND DOWN!" she quickly ordered the youngster who was struggling to get up, his body quite battered. Rex just looked at the pretty girl, but he also sensed something special about the girl. He could feel the girls own affinity to blood. And while not nearly at his level, it was there, though at the same time it was also much different than his own. He had dominion over blood as an aspect of soul, granting him much wider range of choice in how to invoke it, The girl however was purely focused on blood affinity, thus taking away her ability to apply brands, or interact with them.

'A vampire?' Rex thought to himself, having red about the ratehr reclusive creatures of the night. Well, not so much in this world, he supposed, seeing as the girl was out and about in the middle of the day.

Regardless, upon hearing the order, the youngster slumped back on the ground, his body exausted and aching, pain passing through his entire body, though he was in no actual lethal danger as of yet. The girl, with her order spat out towards the young man immediatly dropped to her knees, and bowed in a dogeza towards Rex, and from such position she spoke, her words clear and carrier both reverence and fear within them.

"Revered Blood lord, I express our sincerest appologies for having unknowingly obstructed your path. I beg of you to show mercy to this junior and her servant this once. My father, lord Ferion of Bloodmist isles would be forever gratefull for such kindness, even if we were in the wrong. Please, please forgive us."

"First, introduce yourself, little blood sucker." Rex spoke in a commanding tone, and his words actually caused the girl to slightly blush, for some reason.

"Vanessa Bloodrose. Second daughter of lord Ferion Bloodrose from the Bloodrose duchy of Bloodmist isles."

"Now, for teh more important question, what is a 'Blood lord'? And no, I am not one of your kind."

Rex words caused the girls mouth to drop open, as her head swirled towards him from her dogeza position, eyes wide open in shock.

"How?" the girl shortcircuted for a moment, then quickly reoriented herself and answered his question.

"It is an honorary rank that is bestowed upon exceptionaly pwoerfull vampire lords who have mastered their blood arts to an extremely high level, allowing them to controll multiple blood constructs at the same time, much like your exelency does right now."

"And why would your servant engage me in combat then?" the girl face once again flused red in embrarasment as she answered.

"I have just aquired him, and havent yet had the time to drill him on the knowledge neccesarry, thus he took action when I was dealing with a few other issues I had to solve in the castle. Echlisiarchy is not happy to, but nevertheless have to trade with us due to a few unique recourses that are much needed in their rituals and such, and can only be aquired from us in reliable quantities. As such, depending on the region, a city or who have some contact with our people."

"Hmm. You are excused. Collect your servant and be on your way. Do note that there will be no echlisiarchy soon, so I suppose you will have to look for new trade partners."

"Than you sir for your mercy. Thank you." The girl thanked repeatedly as she quickly got over to her servant and with a small movement of her thumb over her index finger made a small cut and dropped a few drops of her blood in her companions mouth, causing a rather potent healing effect to quickly recover the young man. Seeing the torturous curiosity in the girls eyes, Rex sighed.

"Ask away. I have afforded you one mercy, what a second one, I suppsoe."

"My apologies, your exelency. But just what allows for such exquisite and large scale blood construct controll? I havent even heard tales of such numerous and powerfull construct deployment."

"Exceptionally talanted and powerfull blood mage girl. My friend lent me his host, so to speak. The mans name is Rex, you might have heard of him. He has taken a residence in the port city of Blythe that has been growing like never before due to his presence there. Quite the auction they held every now and then due to his presence. Your scouts and spies must have heard of it." With his words spoken he just cassually waved his hand, indicating for the girl it was time to leave.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Thank you for your boundless kindness your exelency." the girl bowed, followed by the now decently recovered companion of hers, and in no time whatsoever the duo was gone, quickly fleeing the city. They had no issues leaving the barrier since Rex had allowed them to as well. And with the vampire out of the way, Rex refocused his attention on the culling of the city. And due to the ever growing number of blood serpents, the progress was far faster than he could have hoped for. His own constructs did not have any other reason than slaughter, unlike his Svergi raiders, who were just as interested in plunder and sampling of the new merchandise, as actually clearing the city.

No, his constructs worked with a singlular purpose. Extermination. only the noble district was going a bit slower, what with the better quality women and clergy members being there. And unlike Provedence, Rex too did not waste his time on the leadership of the town, ending the lives of most of them in an instant, only keeping alive the worst offenders of who he had solid knowledge regarding their sick hobbies. Those few 'lucky' people would end up in the hands of his resident borrowed torturer from the cultivators- Mr. Han.

Still It took Rex another two days to finish his work, though that also included looting the noble house vaults and other most valuable possesions he could find in the city, including any and all magical artifacts, of which there were little. Still, Rex did not forget to return to Elysion during nights to do his duty as a man and properly fuck his women, as well as spoiling his sister with his attention. The remaining days, were he looted and finished the extermination, Arana as well as Irina, Mel and Val acompanied him, each for slightly different reasons.

Irina just wanted to be spoiled a little more, something she considered her right by this point, what with her being the first of his girls and what not. Mel wanted to sack the libraries of the city and Val just had an itch to loot something. Arana, as Rex expected wanted to went more of her frustrations on echlisiarchians. Obviously , each of the ladies got exactly what they wanted, with Rex watching after them like an overly zealous guard dog. Even if he was well aware there were no threats around that could even hope to harm them, he just could not help it, though the girls did not blame him. On the contrary, they were more than happy with his actions, once again proving he cared for them quite a lot.

With the city purged and looted, and his blood construct army notably expanded, now having reached a whooping thousand peak A class constructs, and thirty early S class ones. his ladies, alongside his personal army were sent to Elysium, as he called for his eagle and departed towards the only remaining target of note within the county of Nor- its capital city Clarity. Arana was the only one who had managed to get her way, remaining by his side as they both were huddled together on the eagles back on their way to their destination.

"It is quite the beautifull land, all things considered." eventually said Arana. "I do hope that your Svergi friends will make more of themselves than the previous ocupants."

"Honestly, I dont much care. What matters to me is the happiness of my people. Nothing else." Rex replied as he pulled his sister closer in his hug. The woman , while being older than Rex, was still treated by him as a little sister, being spoiled with attention and hugs as much as she wanted. Not only by Rex either. Every one of his girls had taken quite the liking for her, as the girl was extremely friendly once she learned they would be a family going forward. The fact that there was no unhealthy rivalry among the women around Rex also helped tremendously in easing Arana in her new enviroment, and Rex was immensly happy about it. Still, he had never had a younger sister, so it was only expected he would spoild Arana way too much, but thanks to Rashuun, both siblings would be kept in check. The woman have had a fair share of children of her own, so the family was in good hands.

"And I am trully happy about it brother." responded Arana slowly drifting to sleep in his arms.

X-----X

"Thats Clarity?" questioned Arana as they looked forward towards a large city with quite white walls of over five meters high. they looked both strong and somewhat a bit magestic, if one could say so about mere walls. Clarity was the largest city in the Nor county, containing almost sixty thousand people within its walls. There were quite a few large defensive towers as well, spread in equal distances between each other along the wall, some sort small mangonells at the top of each. The city was rather well prepeared and equiped to deal with sieges it seemed, but that was only as long as no SS class or above fighters, as unlikely as it was to happen, joined the fray.

Rex also had the advantage of beingf able to deploy his troops whereever he so desired, as well as a desiposable force that could absorb most of the damange during their aproach, if he decided to go with such an aproach. Jirgen and Jorg both stood by his side as well as they looked towards their largest quarry yet, both men excited more than ever before, their blood pumping with excitement for the coming siege.

"How do their forces look?" Asked Jorg, not forgetting his job as the chieftain of his tribe. While none of his men would begrudge falling during such a glorious raid, it was his job nevertheless to minimize the casualties among his men, and he would be damned if he did not do his duty.

"Want an S class or two left for your own entertainment?" Rex asked back, well aware of the chieftains reasons, but deciding to tease teh man none the less.

"Tempting, and hopefully yes, but thats not the reason."

"Well, as expected five percent of A class fighters, bringing them to two and a half grand of those, seven and a half thousand B ranks. Ten S class entities, and.......... would you look at that, a personal toy for me." Rex spoke and then grinned when he reached the end of his sentence.

"Come again?" Confusedly asked Jorg, though everyone else aside from Rex himself had the same question.

"Dont worry, just an angel half blood among them. I can see that filthy light from even here." A few gasps were heard after his explanation, and so Rex felt the need to both elaborate and calm them down.

"Its fine. Not like he can do shit about me anyways, besides, as I said, that is fun for me to have. Who knows, I might send a 'Hi' to his master as I tear it apart."

"Emm. you sure thats how you wanna go about when the gods are involved?" Jorg asked with a slight grimmace.

"Quite sure he would have either descended himself, or sent an amry of angels already, had he the freedom to do so."

"Well, if you say so. Not going to poke the hornets nest myself though, no thank you. My men will be with me on that one too." Jorg added.

"Suit yourself. As for the plan, it is quite simple. I send out my sonstructs to tear a hole in their defences, since any losses can easily be recovered due to the nature of the constructs. Once a path inside is clear, your army follows in constructs path. Both the entry ppoint and the defenders should be softened well enough for your men to be able to overwhelm and crush whatever stands in your way there. I will clear most of the high rank collecions, leaving much weakened force for both constructs and your men to cut through. The rest goes as ussual. You have free reign on who lives or dies, with the exception of all the pretty clergy ladies and noblewomen. And judt in case someone forgot, the inner castle is mine to raid."

"Hrmmm" grunted Jorg "I and my men know. Doesnt make it any easier to accept. The inner castle would be the most fun place to take down. For you it will be far too easy. So much possible fun wasted."

"meh. A matter of perspective." Rex quipped back. "Are your troops ready?"

"Yes. They are. On your command."

"Good. Give the signal five minutes later." Rex responded as he opened a rather large fate to Elysium and his own blood constructs started pouring out of it. In just a few minutes, a veritable army was surrounding Rex, and with a single gesture of his hand, as well a single word, the blood constructs started their charge towards the city walls.

To keep up with the construct charge Rex had mounted one of the larger serpents, and was currently creating quite a few maan javelin constructs , that were flung towards each and every one of the towers in range, precisely destroying the mangonells that were stationed on said towers, making the wall much less daunting of a task to overcome, if the attacking army were a regular one. Unfortunatelly, Rex and his constructs were anything but that. Like With Rinne, a single slash of his empowered sword was enough to create a large hole in the surrounding wall, forcing the defenders to retreat a bit and allowing Rex's forces to pour inside, slaughtering anything that got in the way. Even the S class warrior did not fare any better, as the man was cut in two by Limitless as Rex appeared near the aged warrior.Loosing one of the pillars of their defense did cause immediate panic in close vicinity, giving the constructs much easier time to clear the area around the breach point.