[ Status. ]

[ Title: Heir of Betrayal. ]

>Name: Alestar Dracul<

>Race: Demi-??<

[ Stats ]

HP: 130/150

MP: ??/??

STR: C

VIT: B

AGI: C

INT: C

SPD: A

PER: B

[ Abilities. ]

>Kin Regeneration: Extraordinary healing factor; from minor to major wounds/poisons/ spells as long as you retain the will to live your flesh will mend itself.<

>Dragon's blood (partial Transformation): Boost all base stats by 35%.<

>Devil dragon coat (partial transformation): Buff defensive capabilities by 50% + rank up two stats of the player's choice for 5-10 min.<

>Heir of Betrayal (complete transformation): Once a day when the heir is put in a situation where their odds of survival are less than 5% this transformation/buff will automatically activate at user's request. Once used this skill will enhance every stat by a rank at the price of the player's memories, it will also stack with the other buffs.<

>Dragon of Destruction Aura: ??<

I was a little overwhelmed seeing the wall of text for the first time, and I doubted I'd have the time to leisurely scroll through them with the six traitors ahead of me: besides that though I was disappointed that the assimilation hadn't allowed me to unlock all of my stats.

I told my body to move, but it refused to listen to me as the beast walked up to me with a smile that made a chill of dread run up my spine. His giant palm completely closed around my shoulder while he leaned in as if to share a secret only we could know. "Your ma was a real loud screamer, I like the screamers; so what you'll do is tell me where your Da sent them. You can tell us now, or you can do it after I'm finish with you, I'll make sure to enjoy myself either way." He continued to try and get a reaction from me, even going as far as digging his claws into the back of my shoulder blade. It didn't matter what he did to me because of the notification that had popped up in front of my eyes from the moment he'd touched me.

[ Your chances of survival have dropped below 2% would you like to activate Heir of Betrayal? ]

-Jackal's Party-

Jackal watched Bervel prey on the child's fear after he'd handled House Dracul's main power, and now he would scatter the reminders of the fallen house into the sea; this was his duty, and that was all a loyal Demon knight had. He hadn't enjoyed killing the family, not like that crazed girl or her equally crazy guardian. He liked to believe he was different from the assassins sent along with him to fulfill his master's request. Jackal was going to signal Bervel to stop toying with the boy and kill him before he heard a sharp crack followed by a low groan of surprise and pain. When Jackal raised his head he saw Bervel on his knees in front of the boy. Jackal couldn't explain it but when the boy flicked his arm, it passed through Bervel's side like a hot knife through fat. There was a gurgling groan of pain coming from Bervel now as the big beast man began to crawl away from the boy with one arm, holding his bloody side in hopes of healing the wound.

Unfortunately for him though the last son of Dracul didn't allow him to run; moving with a speed that even Jackal struggled to keep up with the boy dragged the wounded Bervel back towards the bonfire that still raged. With nothing but his strength the boy proceeded to tear off Bervel's legs and arms while a dark killing aura poured from his body. Bervel's screams of pain only intensified once the boy lifted the remainder of his body and tossed it into the flames. Jackal and his human entourage were slightly shocked at the brutality of the young boy's actions, not only that but Jackal could tell by the calm look in his face that despite their advantage of numbers he didn't perceive them as a threat at all.

Like any warrior Jackal felt upset by the boy's nonchalant manner, but unlike the lizard beast man Jackal has remained behind to watch and wait. The Lizard made it far enough to bite down on the boy's shoulder, but at that exact moment a lightning bolt slammed into the ground in front of the boy. A black thundercloud rumbled from overhead while Jackal scanned the settling dust cloud only to find a dead lizard beast man with smoke rising from his body. "Where is the boy?" He snarled while scanning his surroundings, and when his was unable to find anything Jackal turned to the remainder of his companions, they still outnumbered the boy four to one. "What can one boy do?" The bird type beast man muttered mockingly while poking at the black fog that had rolled in following the strange lightning strike.

"Perhaps he's run off-" Jackal's remark was cut off short when a large draconic warrrior in jet black scale armor held out the last beast man's head towards him. A pair of leather wings protruded from the warrior's back, and their eyes shone through the dust emitting a fantastic purple light; their eyes were focused solely on Jackal, as if they were waiting for his reaction. 'I didn't even sense their killing aura, a child shouldn't be at this level.' His thoughts were cut short when the head was suddenly flung towards him and he reflexively dodged out of the way of the head, and into the path of a fist covered in a purple energy wrapped in golden lightning. 'The Heir!??'

Jackal was thrown across the courtyard in one hit, all three of the beast men were completely torn to pieces. Claire wouldn't be able to do much to the beast when Jackal was still recovering and Stella was busy communicating with a summoner along the quiet southern region of Astoria. They'd brought the exile curse at the behest of Stella after hearing of Lord Dracul's power; truthfully the old man had been a disappointment to both of the contracted humans. 'What good is all that strength when a little poison will kill you?' That was all Clair could think as they'd stalked through the manor capturing the children of the house, one of them had even died in his bed; he'd ingested an abnormal amount of the poisoned food so that was to be expected.

Now though, as her attacks were shaken off, without any sign of slowing the dragon soldier torn down her summoned wall with a single strike. The force of the blow forced her back through the air until she landed next to a pile of skinned bodies Stella looked horrified at how close Claire's hand was next to the outer circle of blood. Claire quickly rolled away from the circle a few seconds before the dragon warrior was forced to suddenly stop; his body shook with every extra step he took towards the pair.

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As if he noticed Stella's stare for the first time, the warrior jerkily turned his head towards her; when their eyes met an intense killing aura passed between the two. Stella had been preparing the final mental touches of her transfer circle when the beast stared at her for a lingering moment before focusing on the piles of skinned corpses behind her. The beast suddenly stopped moving after that, like a puppet with it's strings cut his arms fell slack and his head swayed to the side; he stood there with unfocused eyes, standing very much like the charred skeleton of the dead lord.

-Alestar-

[ Warning! If Exile curse is placed on the current player, player's soul will be forced to go through another ego assimilation before the proper level up. ]

The damn notification hadn't left me alone since I felt the first mental alarms after stepping in the circle, I remembered the age old demon realm solution to handling any troublemakers among the higher leveled demons. 'Why the hell does a human have knowledge of the curse!?' A portion of my mind had already thought of all the noble families that might hold hostilities towards my family, but only the royal four held knowledge of that curse. This could only mean that someone among the heads of the royal family had orchestrated my family's murder. The members of each royal family had a crest, depending on their house power certain families would share crests.

I couldn't remember the rest, but what I did remember was the oddly shaped ruby around the summoner girl's neck was the same as the King's very house. The misshapen jewel was said to parody the links between the houses, but every house knew that to harm one wearing one of the pendants meant having the kingdom's wrath pointed at you in one way or another, and my family house was already destroyed.

"I'm sorry father," I mumbled my thoughts aloud that time on accident as the meaning of the attack dawned on me. House Dracul was known for being the greatest power beneath the King himself, and if such a house were to outright go against a royal decree many of the families would see this as a sign that the royal family had lost their feared power. Attacking Lord Dracul during a formal meeting would have been met with considerable force, attacking him after his house and men had been poisoned meant that the resistance would have been null and void.

[ Warning! Should the curse be compl-

"Which house do you believe can save you?" I asked the spell user who'd gone back to working her magic, she flinched at my words and I wondered if a shout in this form might make her fall over. The entertaining thought brought an embittered smile to my face, why would I care about who came next? 'Can I sacrifice another memory for another temporary boost?' I mentally asked the wall of text without hoping for a reply, but one came anyway.

[ Which memories would the player like to sacrifice?]

[???'s childhood memories. ]

[ Royal bonds. ]

[ The great dragon's return. ]

[ Reasons for vengeance. ]

I mentally marked three of the four memories offered and watch the notification blow away; I felt cheated for a moment as the wind around me picked up. I felt the change happen a few moments before the notification came, my skin felt like it was melting away from my bones, once I thought of the bones though I felt them being split and rebuilt at a staggering speed; as if I were some god's toy. The transformation left me out of breath and on one knee, the two females stared at me with fearful eyes.

[ Stat progression at such an abnormal rate has caused a physical transformation in the player. Stats and Ranks will be re-evaluated upon sub-quest completion.]

I could feel the extra levels from the boost, and couldn't worry about the memories I'd sacrificed anyway. While the temporary level up was needed to move around in that circle of blood and bone; I could still see the warning message which was the only reason I could remember something troubling about the circle. The only way to be absolutely free would be to take out the summoner before their spells could come into effect. With some small plan in my mind I launched myself towards the blonde haired girl with everything I had; I could feel the ground beneath my feet crumble with every stride.

The power behind the transformation, stacked on top of the three other buffs was in a new realm entirely, I felt as if even looking at the girl for too long would kill her. Maybe it would have, I wouldn't find out though due to a spear made of that damned red aura nearly hitting me in the face. If I hadn't raised my arm to deflect it I may have been taken out of the fight right then and there. The aura attack sent me back a few paces despite my feet digging into the ground.

The crimson bastard had showed up again to save his allies, or maybe he just meant to save a fellow house member. I could see a fist sized dent in his chest plate, and the red aura surrounding his right arm seemed to be dissipating at a faster rate. My arm moved on it's own, and I found myself pointing directly at the crimson warrior.'

"You couldn't face house Dracul without poisoning an old demon from a forgotten war. I want to look in the eyes of the cowards behind this...injustice." My thoughts left my mouth as if I was running on autopilot. Father was far from weak in his prime, and despite the passing of time he was still a Demon Lord of considerable power. 'Assassins sent in secret, a death without honor...my blood brothers, my sisters, and my mother all forced into an exodus...'

"This." I mumbled while gesturing to the corpses that surrounded me, "All of this is your doing, and things just won't seem right until your souls are sent to personally apologize." As if to show the truth behind my words the thundercloud above me roared shaking the air.

As I took my first steps towards the three I felt confident in putting down the crimson knight, maybe the other two would simply die from the fall out; it would be too easy a death if that happened. With every step I took closer to the edge of the circle my muscles screamed, and I could feel my bones breaking.

[ Spell: Weight of the Ten Hells Rank ?? ]

I read the notification late as the spell finally brought me to one knee, there was another notification though warning about the curse. I didn't have time to read, I didn't know how much more time I could spend in the circle. I stood again, and forced my broken body to move despite the protests I'd already decided to ignore. 'One blow, I'll kill him and deal with the curse after.' I wanted to believe that if I sacrificed a few memories I'd gain the power to overcome this trial; my body was broken beneath the curse's prelude, and the lighting within the purple aura was beginning to destroy my arm. I couldn't take another step and in desperation I bargained with whatever strange power I'd woken up with.

"Sacrifice every memory I can, but keep Reasons for vengeance.'

[ The player will receive severe ego decomposition atop of the preconceived curse conditions. A more considerable option would be to restart with minimum penalty to the player's memories and stats.]

'I'd wake up to a dead family either way. It doesn't matter if I disappear from memory now or later. Sacrifice the damn memories, now!'

The confirmation came later than the last time but this time the world went black.

-Jackal's party-

When the dragon stopped again the crimson knight let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding in; the damned thing had actually made him feel some amount of fear when it continued to walk when the curse had been activated. Feeling a bit of confidence now with a docile opponent Stella attempted to speak in her most confident tone. "W-Well now that it's finally stopped it won't take long for the exile to—"

Whatever she'd wanted to say was interrupted by the roar of the thundercloud overhead, and when the black cloud plunged itself down into the circle she inadvertently took a few steps back. Jackal muttered a curse towards no one as he stared at the phenomenon, and Claire stared with wide eyes full of fear as the black smoke flowed into the dragon's eyes, ears and mouth. As the last wisps of black faded away, eyes of molten gold in a sea of black stared at the them with a malice that caused the red aura around Jackal's arm to rise in a learned prelude to a fight.

The black scaled warrior looked from the red aura that formed into a spear, to Jackal without a change in its expression the beast copied Jackal's tactics and created a pitch black aura spear with threads of golden lightning. Without hesitation it threw the spear faster than Jackal could react, and as the spear tip passed through the circle's wall his mind had begun to form his thoughts. 'This power..' His thought never finished as the spear tore through the back of his chest plate and connected with Stella's shoulder. The sound of the thrown spear finally reached his ears as Stella flew spun in the air at an awkward angle.

Jackal fell to his knees first as his life began to fade, and as his vision faded he could see golden chains emerge from the air around the circle wrapping themselves around the dragon's body. His world finally became dark as the beast roared in anger as it was dragged into the abyss, and then his world became blissfully quiet.

As the last trace of the roar faded away Claire found herself standing on shaky legs, first she stared at Jackal's fallen body, his face was still covered by his helmet but the back along his armor was a bloody mess where the spear had punched through. If not for Stella's scream of pain she may have stood there in fascination at the macabre scene. When she approached the other girl Claire was once again fascinated by her wound. Everything beneath her left shoulder was torn off, leaving only a bloody stump of bone that spilled blood like a torn wine flask. Stella would've died in a few minutes at most from Claire's perspective, and the girl thought of sending her friend off comfortably until two red summon circles appeared next to Jackal's body.

Two demon knights in the same red armor looked from their fallen comrade to the wounded Stella who was slowly succumbing to the shock. The larger of the two pointed a finger at the two girls and in the next moment a transportation circle appeared beneath them taking them away without a single question. "So the elders got what they wanted, Old man Dracul is lost to the abyss and Jackal pays their collective price for it. Another happy ending for our esteemed royal family~." The smaller knight spoke in a mocking tone before kicking over Jackal's dead body with a chuckle. The larger of the two only snorted lightly in reply to the other as two more transportation circles appeared beneath their feet to take them away.