I made like I was going to block both his blows but using a point of second tier death energy at the last moment, I massively accelerated my body. The scimitar landed on my shoulder as I hooked his dagger-wielding arm between my sickles, catching it centimeters from my neck. The magic contained in the sickles tore at the flesh on his arm, the fabric armor evaporated under the eldritch power, and the flesh corrupted and rotted by both the death and eldritch magic.
The scimitar pumped red magic into me, but it was corruption based. My eldritch nature consumed and overwhelmed it. Other than a slight physical wound, that attack accomplished nothing. The elf screamed in pain as he tried to pull his arm away, but the sickles caught in his flesh and held fast. I sneered at him and yanked my sickles apart. Strength and speed were still likely enhanced by the second tier death energy, and the blades cut through his arm with ease.
Half his forearm and hand dropped to the ground. And as the elf recoiled, blood spraying from his severed arm, I followed. In a scissoring motion, I brought the eldritch sickle from the right and the death sickle in from the left, then released power from each. The magic enhanced their cutting ability and released devastating power that amplified the festering diseases left by blades.
I caught his rib cage, my angle perfect, and they severed a line through his ribs, ripping free sprays of blood. The magic was spent for my blades, but the wound left behind was horrendous. Unexpectedly, the energy I had put into my blades to further augment it was soul energy.
That powerful energy damaged the unseen part of him. Not his soul mind you, but the part of him that allowed his body to function correctly. I was amazed that he was still alive. Judging from the positioning in the depths of the wounds, his heart had to be gone. But still, he stood, blood magic pumping into the ragged wound trying to heal it. But the damage left by the soul attack prevented it from working correctly.
More blood than should have been possible continued to pour out of the elf as he sank to his knees. Bringing the two parts of Mercy together, I formed them into a blade staff with a long heavy blade. Glaring at the elf, I used the last tendrils of the second tier death energy and struck.
His head popped off his body in a geyser of blood. Abimelech was still fighting the succubus when I looked over. Her armor was scorched and she was looking tired, but the succubus was far worse off. Raven had recovered and joined the fight with a vengeance. While she did not have her daggers, her lynx form had claws that could tear apart steel. The succubus’s armor cut off her when Raven lacerated her back.
Now basically naked, the succubus still fought, but she was losing. “Surrender and you might live, continue fighting and you will die.” My voice was icy and contained the last dregs of the powerful death energy. The succubus froze in the fight, glancing over at me—I held the head of the blood elf by his red hair.
The succubus lowered her weapon and was about to speak. “Abi, gag her.” I ordered. The succubus opened her mouth to protest, and I snapped, “Not one word leaves your lips. Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth or I shall remove it.”
The succubus closed her mouth as Abimelech tore a piece of fabric to make a gag. “Very Tolkienesque of you,” Maxwell laughed.
Raven in her lynx form came up beside me and rubbed her head against my leg before transforming into her human form. She leapt up and hugged me. “I’m sorry,” she said in a tiny voice. “You told me not to try, but I figured I could handle them on my own.”
“It’s okay,” I said, hugging her back with one arm. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”
“No.” Raven hopped down shaking her head. “My pride is hurt and I…” She trailed off a look in her eyes when she looked at the succubus that would’ve made my blood boil.
I took a step toward the succubus but stumbled as my hip buckled. I caught myself on Mercy. I was no longer bleeding, which was a relief, but the damage he’d done was not insignificant. “I’m okay,” I assured Raven as I channeled death energy into that hip. I sat down on the altar as weariness came over me. Every part of me ached.
“You don’t look okay,” Raven said, noticing the blood on my armor. “You aren’t supposed to bleed.”
“I’m fine, that blood elf used a powerful healing spell on me,” I explained. “And I used second tier death energy to power me up, the side effects suck, but the power is amazing.”
“Weren’t you supposed to test with that before you used it in battle?” Maxwell asked.
“I never got to it,” I mumbled. “I have been a little busy.”
The three of us sat there as Abimelech bound and gagged the succubus quite thoroughly. When she was done, she looked over at me. “What do you want done with her?”
“Find the tallest building in the town square with a balcony and take her there,” I ordered. “Also, have the people still alive gathered up, as many as you can, best to address them now. I will follow in a few minutes.”
***
It ended up taking quite a long time for me to recover. I could continue to use the second tier energy to keep me going, but I suspected that was a bad idea. The scimitars from the blood priest and succubus were corruption-based weapons that went into my storage bag. I didn’t have to worry about space, the size of the storage space in my mana attuned bag of holding was based on my mana pool. Right now, that meant I had a storage space of just under twenty-five cubic meters, which is ridiculous.
The armor for the succubus appeared to have powerful enchantments on it. Despite hardly covering anything, there was a series of enchantments designed to cloud the mind of whoever she fought, both making it harder to hit her and slowly whittle away at their mental resistances.
Unfortunately for her, she had been up against one of the Dread Thirteen. Their eldritch mind didn’t make them immune to that kind of manipulation, but it made them very resistant to it. I had been affected when I’d been possessing the scout simply because it was through a connection. My mind did not fully enter whatever I possessed. The part of it that had did not resist the succubus well.
The bone dagger was interesting. There was a small tug on my mind when I picked it up, but I ignored it for now. I expected it to be augmented towards ritual blood magic, but it wasn’t. The black bones were covered in runic etchings, and as far as I could tell none of them augmented towards one type of magic. Studying it closely I finally got a prompt to pull up.
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Adramech’s Blade of Sacrifice
Weapon Class: Dagger
Legendary
Soul Compression stage one completion not required.
Made from one of the horns of greater demon Adramech and used to sacrifice the demon himself on an alter to a rival demon king, the blade will penetrate barriers and armor with ease. It thirsts for blood, not quite a living weapon, still its desires are made known to whoever wields it.
Abilities:
Swift Sacrificial Dagger: When used to sacrifice the being it had been born from, this dagger gained a spark of will. It sought to end the life of the being as swiftly and painlessly as possible. This trait has remained for all that it is used on.
Total Sacrifice: When sacrificing its origin, the dagger did not want any of its progenitor’s sacrifice to be wasted so it made sure it was not. Can be powered with the wielders mana to assure no loss of whatever the sacrifice is being sacrificed for. Mana will not affect any rituals involved.
Demonic Horn: Curses, hexes, and demonic smites cast using this as the means of delivery will have their power greatly amplified.
Runes of Power: The blade was covered in runes by a master rune smith after first purging any magical attunements within the blade. The runes allowed the blade to store a complex ritual or spell within it to be activated as the wielder desires.
I really wanted to know how this priest had a legendary demonic dagger, my guess was it came from the succubus. But this didn’t seem like something she should’ve had. Legendary gear was rare at the power levels we were. Much less a legendary item like this.
I shared the description with Maxwell and Raven. “Holy crap,” Maxwell said. “Not just a legendary dagger but a legendary dagger.” He tried to emphasize the second word.
“You just said legendary twice, the saying a second time make it more legendary?” Raven inquired. “Can I have the dagger?”
“I was thinking it would be suited for you. I can help with the ritual side of it if you want to really put something in there,” I said, handing her the dagger. “There is a massive variance in legendary items. Soul compression not being required for a legendary weapon like this, by itself, means the weapon likely falls into the second category.”
“I might have to take you up on the rituals,” Raven said. “I’m not very good at them. So is the second category of legendary weapons like Mercy?”
I snorted. “No, Mercy is a mythical weapon, the difference between mythical weapons and legendary is hard to quantify, it’s a lot of different factors coming together. The best way to think of legendary weapons is this.” I held out my hand for the dagger and she handed it back to me suspiciously—she could be so possessive. “I promise I’m not keeping it. Legendary items of the first type can be crafted, but it always requires a mastery of two different crafting skills.”
Using tendrils of eldritch power, I held the dagger out pointing at different things. “A dagger like this of the first type of legendary weapons would require a skilled smith and magical metal. Then the rune would also be done by him, ideally, to bring out the magical power of the weapon. Those processes make the weapon strong enough that unless you have soul compression completed, it will physically harm you to pick it up. That’s not what was done with this.”
“It’s made out of a demon horn,” Raven pointed out.
“Exactly. I would guess that is more than just demon horn that has made it what it is, the description of the process that it went through added something as well. But the material is one of the bases that makes a difference. Say that same smith was given or acquired the metal heart of a metal dragon, a young one anyway. The weapon he forged with that metal heart would be the first type of legendary by itself, then he adds runes and the power is refined and amplified.”
“And that would make it into the second type of legendary,” Raven concluded. “Why is there not a requirement for soul compression?”
“You are mostly right. That would make it into the bare minimum for the second type of legendary. Other steps can be taken to make it go further. Soul compression is unnecessary since the weapon’s material contains its power without emitting it. The material always had power; it’s just being used differently now.”
Raven nodded in understanding and was silent as she thought on something. I handed the dagger back and gestured we should head out. We made our way out of the building and were heading towards the center of the city. My troops were everywhere.
“Man, I need a legendary weapon now,” Maxwell grumbled. “The only one without one.”
“You know technically speaking, I don’t have one either,” I began and Maxwell glared at me.
Just as Maxwell was going to speak, Raven asked a question. “So do all weapons made by smiths for people as strong as us or stronger require soul compression?”
“No,” Maxwell answered this time. “Magical class weapons will sometimes have that requirement and I’ve heard of the occasional rare weapon as well, uncommon. Most of the time what prevents lower-level people from using more powerful weapons is they lack the strength. If you’re a warrior build, you have been putting points into strength. By the time you are passing soul compression, the great sword you’re swinging around probably weighs more than a boulder.”
“But not all weapons are heavy,” Raven pointed out. “So why don’t weaker people just get lighter weapons that are meant for not strength-based people?”
“Because there’s not much point,” Maxwell continued. “Blades can only get so sharp. The reason why that great sword ways more than a boulder is its increased durability. That same warrior using the weapon he started with, might do the same damage against a target, but he would swing the great sword with such force that it would break on impact.”
“There are spells that can increase the ability a weapon has to cut,” I added. “But when you enchant weapons, their power rapidly goes up and anything that would make a difference would likely have soul compression as a requirement.”
Raven studied her dagger. “That makes this type of legendary precious.” I thought I saw her purple eyes glint gold for a moment.
“Incredibly,” Maxwell agreed. “If you had that and were weak, the best course of action would be for you to never tell anyone you had it and let no one inspect it, hide it, or sell it. Because someone stronger than you would come along and take it otherwise.”
“How did Zeke hang onto Mercy then?” Raven demanded.
“Two ways,” I explained, seeing Vito approach. “One, Mercy can be disguised.” I sheathed it, shifting it into a simple staff form, one Raven had seen before. “And secondly, if someone took it, its soul bound to me, they couldn’t use it, and in particular with Mercy it would come back.”
“Can I still bind this?” Raven asked.
Vito was suddenly with us, having seen Raven holding out the dagger and rushed over to see what it was. “Of course we can,” he smiled at her. “That is quite the dagger. I might ask to borrow it occasionally if that is okay?”
Raven eyed him suspiciously. “It’s mine.”
Vito smiled patiently. “Of course it is, and we should bind it to you. I will only be able to use it so long as you allow me to.”
Raven cocked her head and then nodded acceptance, shifting back into her lynx form and climbing up on my shoulder. Absently I reached up and pet her. “What did you do with the high priest?”
“I stashed him away for later,” Vito explained. “I didn’t want to just kill him, what a waste of resources.”
I shrugged. The high priest had been my enemy, all blood magic users were my enemies, I’d decided. “Just don’t drain them all at once, best to savor things,” I said and Maxwell gave me an odd look.
Vito looked at me in confusion before he shook his head. “I’m not saving them for a meal, high priests are different. When I subdued him without killing him I decided we could have better use for him. I figured a death high priest might be a nice thing to have around.”
“How’s that going to work…” I started to ask before trailing off. “You know what? Never mind, a death high priest would be wonderful.”
“I thought so. You have any plans for that succubus that Abimelech is sitting on?”
“No.” I gave him a wry smile. “I figured demons were too valuable a resource just to waste.”
Vito laughed. “I knew you would eventually start to see things my way.”
I winced internally, but only a little.
“I guess we’re going the whole dark overlord route, aren’t we?” Maxwell snorted. “After you spent so long not doing this exact thing.”
Internally I winced again, but I also had a more enlightened look at what I was doing. Being part of the natural order was inevitable if life is death.