12. Headway

We exited our underground prison without much issue. Thwain scouted and I dusted myself off as Pyro collapsed the tunnel behind us.

I looked around. It looked like a monster wave had slammed the city. The church was a pile of rubble, half of it having fallen in on itself. It didn’t stop there, though. Parts of the church had fallen outwards, crashing into nearby buildings and busting open entire walls. People were strewn about haphazardly, many sporting injuries consistent with the building’s collapse, but others having obviously died in battle.

Just as I saw that Thwain was returning towards us, figures in red streamed into the area from every direction. A veritable army of Blood Oats flooded the area, unhesitatingly mowing down anyone in blue. I rushed to Pyro.

“Get us out, now,” I said.

He nodded, but froze as he saw something over my shoulder. I turned around and swore. Thwain had been caught by a few Blood Oats. They weren’t actively attacking him, but they were forcing him onto his knees. At least we weren’t wearing blue.

“Quick. Gather as much rock dust as you can, I’ve got a plan. Ish.” I opened my Bestiary, mana rushing out of me in a panicked torrent.

Thwain knelt, hands tied behind his back, as five Blood Oats manhandled him roughly. Well, could you manhandle someone softly? Ok, he was being manhandled. A bit of blood trickled down his cheek, but he seemed unharmed enough.

I faked a limp as Pyro and I dragged our trump card towards Thwain and his captors.

“This better work,” Pyro whispered barely audibly.

“Hey, I yelled, coughing out a bit of stone dust that Pyro had gathered. “She’s… She’s here. Quick, get her to a well!”

We hobbled over to the group.

“Is that…” One of the Blood Oats trailed off, terror filling his eyes. We stumbled a bit, feigning weakness. All of their eyes went wide as they recognized the figure between us.

“General Samanca! Get over here, now!” The apparent leader of the small group yelled. A few other Blood Oats ran over.

“Price, what’s the…” Samanca, a nasty-looking man also started asking, before trailing off. He had scars all over his face and held a wickedly barbed whip. It was whipedly barbed. Wickerly whipped… Nope, that sounds too much like a basket. The grip on his whip slackened a bit when he saw the demon propped up between me and Pyro.

“Price!” The general barked, “Escort the Unchained to clinic C. NOW!” He bellowed the last word, leaving no room for error. “Squadrons A through D, escort Price to clinic C. Let nobody interfere. Go, go, go!”

Half of the crowd dressed in red ran over, getting into formation around us.

“General, what do we do with this prisoner?” Price asked.

“He… Saved… Me…” My demon said weakly, followed by a feeble cough. She was good, I had to give it to her. She followed directions easily and could adapt in ways that Slimey couldn’t.

“You heard her, untie him,” General Samanca ordered.

We were marched down alleyways and along the main drag until we arrived at a second building owned by the Blood Oats. It was an office building and everything seemed totally normal until, you guessed it, we walked down to the basement. There was the same setup as last time, though the blood was being bottled instead of collected into a well. I did my best to whisper instructions to the demon as we made our way down the narrow stairs.

“I… Am… Too… Weak…” She breathed. She let herself be dragged to a chair in the middle of the basement. Price tried to give her a vial of blood, but she waved it off.

“I cannot… Too… Weak… Need… Fresh…” She stared hungrily at one of our escorts. Suddenly, quite a few gang members remembered that they had things to do upstairs.

Within a minute, there were only a handful of us left in the basement. Price was dabbing the sweat off of his forehead with a handkerchief.

“You,” Price pointed at one of the gang members. “Give…” He hesitated. “Give some of your life essence to the Unchained. She requires it.” The other member, a younger man, maybe even a teenager, shook his head violently and started trembling beneath his red robes. Even his teeth clacked together. He really was pitiful.

Thwain stepped up, saving him from a gruesome fate. “I’ll do it,” he said confidently. He knelt down on one knee in front of the demon. He took his shirt off, then bowed his head low. As she placed her hand on his shoulder, his back arched violently. He strained for a few moments, then slumped. The demon seemed to grow a little, but it might have been a trick of the flickering torchlight. She sat up straighter, her gaze sharpened, reinvigorated.

She licked her lips. “To show my appreciation for this first gesture…” She placed her hand against the middle of Thwain’s back. Her face pinched in concentration. Then, black wings exploded from Thwain’s back, flapping powerfully a few times, sending wind blowing throughout the basement. I had to rub my eyes to clean the dirt and dust from them. Thwain stood, flexing his wings, a look of amazement in his eyes that he really didn’t need to fake. The wings were cool as shit.

“There,” she said imperiously. “The first brave soul to freely give me his essence. You have received my boon, use it wisely, for I am the Unchained. I am the mother of hellspawn, conqueror of the Tower. Everyone who stands in my way shall feel my wrath, but my allies shall soar!” Her voice raised slowly throughout her speech until she ended with a roar. She was definitely overdoing it, but the Blood Oats were eating it up. They stood there, in awe at her speech, but mostly at the bestowal of a pair of majestic wings. They lined up in front of her, taking off their robes to expose their bare backs. Meanwhile, Thwain dismissed his wings, putting his shirt back on.

One by one, she drained them until they fell unconscious. When only Price was left, she pointed to him.

“You, there. They call you General?” She asked. He shook his head timidly. “Well, not-General, get me more soldiers. We shall raise an army. When these soldiers wake, we will take this entire floor!” Her pronouncement echoed a little in the small basement. I felt like it was a nice touch.

He nodded repeatedly, hastily making his way upstairs. As soon as he was out of sight, I ordered my demon to absorb some of the blood supply stocked in jars around the room. She consumed the blood voraciously, giddily running from container to container. When we heard footsteps coming down the stairs, she ran back to her seat and waited, as if a queen in her throne.

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A lineup of Blood Oats members filed in, all of them in the customary blood red robes. I picked out most, if not all of the ones that had escorted us, plus a smattering of new faces. We moved the unconscious bodies to the side to make room for the bestowals. The new members seemed a little nervous, so we decided that they needed a demonstration.

“Behold,” the demon said, “Those who truly believe shall be rewarded!”

At that, Thwain took off his shirt and conjured his demon wings. The crowd gasped. He flapped them a few times before unsummoning them. I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes glowed a bright purple-red while his wings were active. Cool! That probably wasn’t any kind of foreshadowing, though, just my perception.

Again, the gang members lined up to receive their… Blessings. My summon drained just enough life force from each to render them unconscious. Yet again, there was only Price left.

“You have brought me many willing participants,” the demon said. “What is your name?”

“Price, your, uh.. Unchainedness,” he stammered.

“Price…” She said it slowly, as if tasting the word. “To my first soldier, I gave wings. To you…” She cocked her head to the side, evaluating him. “Power?”

The words had barely left her lips when he nodded his head excitedly, taking off his robes and throwing himself to his knees in front of the demon. She placed her hand on his back and drained. He fell unconscious. She kept draining. His body withered. She kept draining. She absorbed every iota of his life force, until all that was left was a dirty skeleton and a pile of cloth. She smacked her lips in satisfaction.

“Have at it,” I told her, gesturing to the rest of the unconscious bodies lined up all around the basement.

“Oh, I LOVE this job!” She squealed, running from person to person, draining them until they were nothing but husks.

Pyro looked a little green.

“Not so sexy now, eh, buddy?” I asked.

“Shut up,” he replied, looking away. “It wasn’t like that,” he said.

“Suuuuure,” I teased.

“All done!” The bubbly announcement came from the other side of the basement. I looked over, trying to keep my face straight. She had ripped through the piles of unconscious gang members within moments.

“Great,” I said. “Are you up for storming the upper floors of this building?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I can run up to people and drain them, so if that’s enough, then yes!”

I hemmed and hawed for a few seconds before coming to a decision. “Hold off on that for a moment. We need to clean up down here, first,” I said. With that, I unsummoned her and summoned my slime. For the first time since I gained my class, I actually felt the strain of the summoning. It wasn’t like the time that Slimey had died. He wasn’t resisting. I just seemed to have just enough mana to summon him, and not much more.

Once I barely managed to summon my slime, I sent him to work. He happily bounced from husk to husk, consuming the remains with ease. Then, I set him to consuming any of the blood that was still in the basement. I checked my Bestiary as he finished up.

[https://i.imgur.com/OcSKAl2.png]

Bestiary entry: Green slime selected.

Soul strength: 384%. Collect more essence to increase soul strength.

[https://i.imgur.com/TyeTp8L.png]

Bestiary entry: Demon selected.

Soul strength: 23%. Collect more essence to increase soul strength.

Warning! Bestiary capacity: 2/2. Upgrade your Bestiary to hold more souls.

I was happy with my numbers. Obviously, the demon’s power increased slowly, but it was increasing steadily. Seeing how slowly its power grew, I tried not to kick myself in the ass for leaving the blood-well untouched under the church. Hell, even Slimey could probably have been dropped down and unsummoned when he was done. My slime was also doing alright, despite my blunder. I was curious to see if it would keep growing bigger or if it would evolve eventually. Maybe its density would increase or something, stopping it from becoming a ginormous, unwieldy blob.

“Demon time?” Thwain asked as there was nothing much else left in the basement.

“We have to wreck that machine, first,” I said, pointing to the blood collecting machine in the ceiling. I sent Slimey over to see if it could deal with it. My summon jumped up a few times, squishing and squashing into the contraption a few times. The metal corroded slightly with each pass. After a couple dozen passes, I was satisfied that nobody could reuse the device.

I was about to unsummon my slime, when I stopped, frowning.

“What’s up?” Pyro asked.

“I don’t think I can summon my demon, even after unsummoning my slime,” I admitted. I still felt pretty drained from summoning my slime directly after unsummoning my demon. “I might be able to summon it later, but I don’t think I can, right now. Do I keep Slimey out or?” I trailed off, unsure.

“Unsummon,” Thwain said. “We’ve done more than enough here. We can dip out quietly and reassess when we have time to think it over clearly. That’s more than enough chaos for today.”

“Hey,” Pyro said. “What if we didn’t just slip out? They might have some cash…” He said, pointing upwards.

I was glad for a reason not to unsummon Slimey. I just felt so useless without my summons. We looked around the basement once more, making sure not to leave anything behind, then headed upstairs, my slime in front. He was really getting to the point that something had to be done. He was almost four cubic feet in size, which, if he kept growing, was going to be an issue.

The first floor of the office building was devoid of people, so we searched it quickly before moving to the second floor. We didn’t find anything of note on the first floor, but we did find two more Blood Oats members on the second.

“Attack!” I commanded my slime. Pyro covered his fists with earth. Thwain took out a pistol.

SHHWWACK!

Slimey smashed into one gangster, sending him toppling to the ground. He used the man as a springboard to launch onto the next, enveloping the second man’s upper body in an instant. As he flailed, the trapped man only caused himself more pain as he dug his arms into my summon’s caustic goo. Pyro ran over and punched the first man hard enough that his head bounced off of the floor. He didn’t get back up.

We searched the second floor as Slimey gladly played cleanup crew. I regretted not being able to power up my demon, but I simply didn't have the mana to spare or the time to waste waiting for it to regenerate. Thwain found some documents that he said looked spicy, so he took them.

Pyro was also lucky. “Boo yah!” He yelled. “Found some coin!” He rocked a safe back and forth, relishing in the sound of sloshing coins before smashing it open between two armored fists. He scooped up coins into his pockets before rage quitting and bringing the safe with him over to me.

“Théo,” he said, “put these in your bag.”

I opened my bag and he dumped the entire safe’s contents into it. I leaned over a bit at the weight of all of the coins. Cripe, I could hardly carry the safe’s contents, I could hardly imagine how heavy the entire thing was. Either way, I wasn’t complaining. The safe wasn’t just filled with copper coins. I was pretty sure I caught the distinct gleam of silver, as well.