Nero stood at the Khan marina a short distance from the castle. His large figure was covered in a loose, long dark robe with a hood as he stared off in the distance over the water.
A clan leader approached him from behind, “You are certain these are your wishes? We could be of great help. Truly. You do not have to do it this way.”
After witnessing Nero bloodbend, the clan leaders treated him as their de facto emperor for they knew if he could bloodbend, he also bore the title of BloodStar Immortal.
Nero grunted, “Empress Xenia intends to wed me. I will not serve as an embarrassment at her side. Whether I need your help or not is irrelevant. I will be retaking the BloodStar Empire alone as a display of my worthiness and as a wedding gift to our empress.”
The clan leader bowed his head, “Of course. Your two requests have been arranged. We will provide transport to the mainland, and once we drop you off, we will make the call.”
Nero nodded, “And you are certain your inside man will do as he’s told?”
The clan leader affirmed, “He will. The blood troughs will be open throughout the capital and main shipping port.”
“Then I am ready to go.” Nero stepped on to a small yacht owned by Constance, and the clan leader and several of his most trusted men boarded behind Nero.
They took the yacht out in broad daylight shuttling across the waterway between Khan Island and the BloodStar Empire. The water was calm and smooth, the sun bright and simmering, and the breeze cool and refreshing. It was a perfect tropical day.
Eventually, they approached the main shipping port of the BloodStar Empire where they found a small maritime blockade. The clan leader looked to Nero, “We can try to break the blockade; however, they will likely fire upon our boat, sinking it.”
“Stop the boat here.” Nero walked to the back of the boat and stood on the lower ledge at water level as the top layer of ocean water washed over his feet atop the platform.
The clan leader shouted to Nero from above, “Swimming from here would be a tall task. The shore is more than a half mile away, and even if you bypass the blockade, military activity is teeming near the main port and capital thanks to our encounter last night.”
Nero removed his robe throwing it aside revealing his massive, muscular body. Even his masculine mane of chest hair couldn’t completely hide his bulging chest muscles. His body was cut with a low body fat percentage; however, rather than a chiseled and vascular body, his muscles were like thick boulders of mass covered by rough skin which epitomized supreme strength built through experience.
Nero stood in the sun, his hair blowing in the breeze, as he surveyed the blockade. To the BloodStar forces manning the blockade, Nero looked like a hulking bodybuilder preparing for a swim in nothing but a pair of short and rather snug crimson shorts.
The maritime guards took little notice of Nero. Once their attention moved away, Nero raised his hand, “Sword.”
The clan leader immediately brought a long scabbard housing Nero’s sheathed sword and handed it to him. He secured the leather strap diagonally across his chest with the sword resting on his back.
Nero then looked to the clan leader, “Make the call to your inside man in 15 minutes. To fail me is to fail our empress. Do not fail.”
The clan leader shook his head vigorously indicating he understood; however, before he could respond verbally, Nero dove off the back of the boat into the water and began to swim at a brisk pace towards the nearest blockade ship.
Nero swam with conviction at an Olympic-athlete pace even with the drag of his sword on his back. As he approached the BloodStar ship, soldiers mobilized, and a loud speaker activated:
“Attention! Stop! You are swimming towards an active-duty BloodStar Destroyer! Further approach will result in hostile actions!”
The man’s voice on the loud speaker repeated the message several times; however, Nero continued towards the ship at breakneck speed.
Soldiers lined the deck with machine guns preparing to fire as their captain yelled, “Ready!... Aim!....”
However, just before receiving the command to fire, Nero dove under the water disappearing from sight. The soldiers scanned the water waiting for him to resurface; however, after thirty seconds, there was no sign of him.
The soldiers diligently continued to scan the water until they noticed an unnerving development. The crystal blue water of the calm sea began to glow with a vibrant red glow underneath their ship.
The soldiers had an uneasy feeling as the glow of red became more vibrant and more intense drowning out the beautiful blue water they had been sailing upon.
Then, the culmination of their fears was realized. A 20-foot in diameter red column of ki shot up from the ocean surface directly beneath their ship. The column fired through the middle of the ship extending to the sky, and the force of the beam blew the destroyer in two distinct pieces which rapidly began to take on water as the destroyer quickly began sinking into the sea.
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The soldiers who had survived the massive ki blast immediately threw themselves overboard to escape the sinking ship. Nearly one hundred soldiers had survived the blast and made it to the water. They began to swim towards the shore; however, Nero patiently waited for them in the depths below.
He focused his bloodbending skills to halt all of their movements. Although the number of targets was well beyond Nero’s beginner’s limits, the goal was not complex. All he had to do was bloodbend the soldiers to be completely still, to immobilize them… and the sea would do the rest of the work.
Nero began to slowly swim towards the water’s surface as bodies sank all around him, helpless to return to the water’s surface for a breath of air. Nero surfaced and continued his swim towards the beach head adjacent to the main port ensuring to hold his bloodbending for as long as he could to ensure the death of the surviving soldiers.
The neighboring destroyers went on high alert transmitting immediate correspondence back to the command center near BloodStar Castle.
While the military scurried to respond, Nero swam and swam until he approached the beach. The water became shallow, and he stood in the soft sands below as he slowly stepped out of the water and onto the beach with his body dripping wet over his wet hair and engorged muscles from the long-distance swimming.
He took several steps forward only to be immediately welcomed by no less than 10 military hummers which came screeching to a halt surrounding him in a semi-circular formation on the beach with the water against his back.
He smirked to himself as he clenched his fists and formed two balls of ki. He stepped forward with two powerful ki blasts forming around his fists growing in size and power with each passing step as he approached the soldiers with a menacing smirk.
One of the soldier’s voices was filled with fear as he shakily managed to say, “Th-that. That’s. Nero. It’s Nero!”
He and several other soldiers who came to the same realization dropped their weapons and began to run; however, it was too late. Nero released both energy balls of ki lighting up the entire beach and incinerating both the soldiers and the vehicles in a blinding light.
Nero continued his march up the beach head through the debris and glassed sand as he heard sirens in the distance.
Nero’s smirk persisted as he reveled in the sound of the distant sirens. He had purposefully made a loud entrance in order to face the BloodStar Empire forces head on, and everything was developing just as he had planned.
He stood on the beach head until he heard a loud clinking noise of pipes grinding against one another as a smooth, long, crimson pipe slid open with the top wrapping around the bottom as it rolled open. The pipe ran discreetly along the roadside leading up to the port and then onto the plaza and castle.
Nero focused as he bloodbent the remaining blood from the dead soldiers on the beach. As he slowly but surely gathered the blood from the dead bodies, he funneled it into the piping system.
____________________________________________________
Meanwhile, at BloodStar Castle, King Ramses and Queen Zara were hurrying down the castle steps, “Come on. Come on. The blockade is set, patrol activity is increased. Things are taken care of here. There is no way we are going to make the ceremony, but if we leave now, we can surely make the reception.”
Zara nodded in agreement with Ramses, “I’m not worried about Jacek, but I just hope Erika can forgive our absence.”
Just as they reached the landing at the bottom of the steps they heard the clinking and moving of metal which stopped them in their tracks.
A loud thunk could be heard in both the distance and nearby. They both looked over to a large pipe painted crimson red. As they did, the pipe’s top half slid aside layering over the bottom half of the pipe with a loud ‘thunk’ and ‘clink’ as it opened and locked in place.
The similar ‘thunk’ and ‘clink’ was like a domino effect as the sound rolled through the castle grounds and down to the main plaza near Xenia’s commemorative monument which still stood.
Ramses had an immediate look of concern, “Someone has activated the blood troughs? But who?”
“There are no more blood benders in the world, so why?” Zara was as much confused as she was concerned.
The blood trough system was a hidden but ever-present piping system laid throughout the capital concentrated near the main plaza and castle. The troughs served as just another measure to ensure invading the BloodStar Empire was completely hopeless. Designed to be filled with the blood of their enemies and subsequently used against the remaining enemies, a true BloodStar would find excess blood to be used as a weapon all around them during an invasion.
Ramses’ phone then beeped. And Zara’s next. Both looked down to see a notification which read: “Blood trough system activated.”
“What the fuck?” Ramses remained confused, “This can’t be right.”
Zara was speechless. However, as both stood at the landing in front of the castle, an eruption occurred in the distance.
Both immediately looked up to see a red glowing column of ki rising out of the ocean and up into the sky.
Next, Ramses phone rang off the hook as his top general called him on his phone. Ramses answered it immediately, “General, what was that?”
“King Ramses! Are you with the Queen? Are you both safe?! A powerful ki user has attacked and destroyed one of our ships in the blockade.”
Ramses and Zara looked at each other before Ramses responded, “We are safe. Is the attacker the same from last night?”
“It is unclear at the moment. I have sent a troupe to the beachhead to impede the attacker while we mobilize our forces in earnest.”
Another loud explosion went off in the distance. Ramses and Zara both jerked their heads up to see a huge explosion of bright light over the beach head.
The general’s voice suddenly became noticeably more distressed, “I know you have a wedding to make. A very important one. However, I must kindly ask you to meet me in the command center at once. I just received a very alarming report.”
Zara clenched her teeth, “Tell us. Who is it?”
The general sighed, “Preliminary reports from a surveillance team are reporting the attacker is… Nero.”
Ramses and Zara looked at one another, eyes filled with fear. Both of their phones vibrated with another alarm which read: “Blood trough system 1% filled.”
Ramses responded to the general, “We’ll meet you there ASAP.”
He hung up the phone, and Zara bit her lip, “I don’t think we are making the wedding after all. Let’s get Jarek on the phone immediately. We are going to need all the help we can muster.”
Ramses nodded and began to ring Jarek; however, his call kept going to voicemail. He continued to power dial Jarek desperately hoping he would pick up; however, time and time again, it went to voicemail.