Chapter 13

As the screams abated and the aura dissipated, both Grey and Lyvia were able to get up and assess the situation. They found it was dire.

The aura had condensed into a wall of dark mana, and the large creature was locked behind it. They were happy for this, because the other two heads now began to awake. If all three were awake, it could very well meant their dead.

However, they noticed that the chimera was looking towards something, following its gaze, they found Daelyn! They were overjoyed at seeing him, he was alive! He was alive! After all of their worry, he was still alive!

However, that joy was shortly lived as they saw his condition. They could not recognise the happy and energetic child, they could only see an empty husk. This reminded them of a scene from their adventurer days, when a swarm of bloodsucking mosquitos had passed through a village and left the villagers behind as empty husks. The villagers had been drained of all of the blood in their body, they looked like a shrivelled up version foetuses. They could not help but feel a tingle down their spine as they saw Daelyn in a similar condition.

Grey immediately started casting a rejuvenation spell, but that was before he had noticed something else. There was a monster heading towards Daelyn, a cockroach like monster.

Lyvia had already turned her attention towards the three headed wolf once more, acknowledging it as the only threat in the room, until she heard a yelp from Grey. As she looked at him and after that at Daelyn, she saw another chimera.

A cockroach like chimera with a scorpion tail and grasshopper blades, as she saw that the creature was about to strike Daelyn with its tail, she went berserk.

‘HOW DARE THAT DAMNED MORSEL TOUCH HIM!’ she raged inside of her mind, ‘I WILL TEAR IT APART, PIECE BY PIECE, AND LET IT PLEAD FOR DEATH IN THE LAST MOMENTS OF ITS MISERABLE LIFE.’. Emotions of anger took over her mind as she planted her foot in the ground, kicked off, and disappeared.

She appeared in front of Daelyn, with the cockroach’s scorpion tail in hand. She had a look that could only be attributed to a devil, as bloodlust flooded the room like a vast ocean, everything inside the dungeon flinched as they felt the bloodlust wash over them. This bloodlust was not one of power, or savageness. This bloodlust was one of determination to give its target the worst end possible, it was meant to convey a message.

As the cockroach had not realized the loss of its tail, it could only freeze in fear of the woman that stood in front of it. It cowered and shivered as its instincts told it to run, but it mind told it that it was useless.

Deciding that it would not accept such an end, it gathered all of its courage, and swung its only remaining scythe towards the woman. The woman promptly grabbed the scythe in its trajectory, put her foot on the joint of the scythe and the body, and pulled.

The cockroach shrieked in terror, as one of its limbs was slowly being torn apart, he shrieked even more as the limb was disconnected from its body with brute force. Its mind was filled with pain from the loss of its limbs, and fear from the woman. The creature had never been this scared in its life, not from the abominations it had fought, not from its master, not from anything.

It could only look on in horror as the woman dropped its torn limb, heaved its tail above her head, and brought it down. She used its tail as a blunt weapon to beat it to death. Lyvia did not focus on the head, instead it focused on every part of the chimera’s body, trying to cause as much pain as possible before its miserable existence ended.

‘DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIE, DIEEEEEE’ rang through her mind as her rage took over and she pummelled the cockroach. She was enraged at the thought that it would dare hurt Daelyn. All of the scenes of their happiness flashed before her eyes as she thought about what it meant to lose her son, she did not like it. It angered her, it angered her greatly. She would not have some damned filthy chimera kill him, she would not have some rich snob degrade him, and she wouldn’t let him be enslaved to some damned noblemen of any country. Daelyn was her son, and she sure as hell wouldn’t let him die like this.

As she smashed the cockroach again and again with its own tail, it began to change into a bloody mush.

After several minutes of redecorating the room with a red paint, the intervals between the smashes of her club slowed, until she grinded to a halt. The creature had already been long dead, but she had needed to vent the stress she had gone through since she had heard that feral roar.

As she stopped her assault, she straightened her back, and let the scorpion tail fall on the ground with a light ‘tud’. Everyone in the room looked upon her in fear as she stood up, they knew that it would be unwise to intervene now.

Lyvia glared at both Orthrus and the three headed hound, to which they responded with a shiver before retreating a few meters.

Lyvia, satisfied with the results, turned around and looked upon Daelyn. He was still dutifully holding up the barrier, she could only smile upon seeing his face. Even if he was pale and seemed to be an empty husk of his former self, he was still her son, and she loved him was all of her heart.

Not minding the organs and gore plastered on her, she picked up Daelyn and cradled him against her. She cradled him like he was still a baby, holding him against her chest, letting him hear her heartbeat. He seemed to calm down from this, as his expression eased and the wall of dark mana disappeared behind them. He opened his eyes and looked at Lyvia, she could only smile as she was assured that her son was alive, despite all of this.

Daelyn tried to say something, but was only met with a shush from Lyvia and a kiss on his forehead. He felt the exhaustion wash over him as he felt the calming vibration ring through his mind, emptying it, and letting his consciousness fade away into the lands of dreams and nightmares.

She began to rock Daelyn in her arms as he fell asleep.

As Daelyn finally fell asleep, she calmly walked away with him in her arms. She walked like it was a normal day, like she was going to the local market to buy her groceries, enjoying the ambient sounds of nature, and feeling joy from the sleeping face of her son.

As Grey, Orthrus and the chimera saw her walk away, they were completed fascinated by the scene. This woman had just reduced a fairly powerful chimera to a bloody mush, with some of the most brutal killing intent they had felt, and was now walking away, completely covered in gore, with her son in her arms like it was the most normal thing in the world.

She suddenly stopped, and said with a calm and loving voice: “Grey, dear, it’s time we go home. We still need to get ready for the playdate.”

As Grey heard this, he snapped out his stupor, and quickly followed her. He could only think about their past as something similar had happened during their adventurer days.

She had adopted a little monster, it was the abandoned child of a razortusk boar. These boars had extremely sharp tusk and had unbelievably strong legs, resulting in being able to deliver a very strong charge, but the parents had been killed by a grizzly bear, the magical strengthened kind, and she had killed the grizzly. As they were about to engage the bear, Lyvia saw the baby razor tusk, and was completely smitten.

She saw that the bear was about to eat it, and went berserk. She had killed the bear in seconds before cuddling the piglet almost to death. The piglet only lived because I had warned that it was about to choke to death. The piglet joined their journey for about half a year, before it returned to the wild. Lyvia was saddened by this, but she had seen the piglet become strong over the course of a half year, and was confident in its ability to become even stronger.

Coincidentally, she also started craving for a child after the boar had left.

Grey could not continue his reminiscing of the past as he was left behind by Lyvia and Daelyn, he quickened his step to catch up with them, only to be met with a smile as he did.

As Orthrus saw the couple walk away, he looked at the large creature, and saw that it was just as shocked as he was. Orthrus could not comprehend how these people could be so calm, Daelyn had a new type of magic! A new fucking type! That was unheard of!

He turned towards the chimera and started to emanate his dark mana, but instead of trying to gain control of its soul through brute force, he tried to communicate.

“Why did you protect the child, why did you not kill it, and how did you help form its core?” Resounded through the large creature’s mind.

The large creature looked at Orthrus with a questioning but cautious look, until the last question. Its expression suddenly turned sour as it turned away from Orthrus.

Orthrus was perplexed by this, why was he embarrassed by that last question? Unless…

His face suddenly paled as he thought about what could have happened, he stammered as he tried to address the creature: “D-did y-you give him your blessing?”

Orthrus could only think of this, it had happened before that a child developed its mana core early, but this was normally under the blessing of a powerful creature.

Meanwhile, the large creature was shocked at the remark the mage made, bless the creature? It did not such thing, and as the middle head was about to respond, it was halted by the other two.

‘What are you doing! This is our change! Let him believe we blessed that creature, and he will leave us alone.’ Said the left head with anger in his voice.

‘I agree, he will most likely send everything in his soul space at us if he found out what we did, we can’t let that happen. Let that stupid mage think that we blessed it, and we may be freed from this damned body.’ Supported the right head with a cold and logical voice.

The middle head thought their plan was a good one, but it was still vigilant, since it feared for the small creature, and their plans. He complied, and he answered the mage in front of them.

“Indeed we did, we blessed him. We saw him as one of our own, an abomination just like us.” Resounded through Orthrus’ mind as the middle head represented the three of them. He wanted to sound as believable as possible and provided a vague reason for blessing him. They knew he was not stupid, because if he was, they wouldn’t be here.

Orthrus, despite seeing it as a possibility for what happened, was still apprehensive of trusting this creature. He knew its history with humanoids, and he knew it was not pretty. Trusting it would go a long way, but he saw the magical energies inside of Daelyn, and he could only think of this option, as this was the most common cases of the early developments of cores.

The most common cases of early developments of cores are normally when the children are blessed by either gods, or strong and sentient monsters. These were the known cases of early development and their causation. Orthrus had done a lot of research towards the development of cores in children, but he could not find any information about the development of cores in children, besides receiving a blessing, in even the largest library of the dark elf kingdom, the national library in the capital.

The cases in which children had developed their core early and weren’t blessed, it was simply unknown what happened. Orthrus was baffled by this, how did they not know?

He had his suspicions at both the chimera and the absence of research. It would be completely lunatic for mages, mages of all things, to not try and understand that process. Completely lunatic. Pure mana mages might not be as inquisitive and observant as dark mages, but that does not mean that they would be stupid. While the small body might not be able to hold the mana, it could still try to learn to control the mana if it was tapped away by an outside force, the child could learn to manipulate mana early. Children could become prodigies simply by the early development of their core.

Besides his suspicion of the research, Orthrus had his eyes on the chimera. He was far from stupid, and knew the chimera might very well be lying. It could hardly be that the blessing of a moderately strong monster caused a fusion between death and blood magic. He had never heard of it, and he knew damned well that that chimera could be lying its ass off. But, Orthrus had no way to prove this, and decided that being observant would be the best option in this case.

He turned towards the creature and said with a cold and dark voice, finalizing the conversation: “That child is my disciple, hurt him, and you shall feel my wrath, understood?”

The chimera did not back down, but it did reinforce the thought that if it was going to kill the child, he would do it outside of the mage’s jurisdiction. The two heads on either side of the middle one were already planning on how to efficiently devour the child and escape, while the middle head took the warning of the mage to heart, and reinforced his devotion to protect the child, from both inside and outside forces.

As the different heads were making their schemes, Orthrus hurried down the hall to catch up to Lyvia and Grey. He needed to clear some things up, as this situation was rare, unheard of, and would be looked down upon.

He finally caught up to them in the room outside the iron door. They looked at him with a questioning look: “Orthrus, why did you take so long?” Lyvia asked with an inquisitive face, while she was cradling Daelyn close to her.

Orthrus looked at both of them before regaining his composure and starting the conversation with a decisive and clear tone: “We need to make something clear. We can’t tell what happened today, we can’t tell anyone, not friends, family, no one. Daelyn can’t tell any of his friends, anyone. We have to keep this a secret. Both of you might know the struggles of dark mages, but the combination between a dark and blood mage, an early awakening, and a child born with the affinities will only be seen as blasphemy. If someone does come to now, do not let them use it against you. If a friend finds out, make sure they do not talk.”

Grey snickered before adjusting his expression and saying to Orthrus with a clear and understanding voice: “We know Orthrus. We can’t tell this to anyone, we would only be able to use this as bragging material. But if our bragging causes an inquisition, it isn’t really worth it.”

Lyvia could only grin at her husband’s remark, before saying to Orthrus with a calm and soothing tone: “Of course we know, we will tell Daelyn as soon as we can, but the playdate is in the afternoon, and I would rather have him join that if he wants to get some friends in his lifetime, don’t you agree?”

The sun was almost at its summit, but Orthrus had completely forgotten this from his diluted biological clock, and his raging mind trying to address the events that transpired that last few hours.

“Yes, yes, of course. It would only be for the best if Daelyn went to that playdate, but make sure that he does not experience a large amount of stress. That aura earlier was a product from such an outburst. We can hardly let that happen in a room full of children.”

Lyvia let out a soft laugh before saying: ‘Yes, that would be quite unfortunate. Imagine seeing the horror on the parents’ faces, as their children were assaulted by the screams of tortured souls. That would be quite the situation, wouldn’t it, dear?”

Grey smiled at his wife and said with a reassuring tone: “We will keep tabs on him, it would indeed be quite the situation if that happened, not to mention the consequences following it. Let’s just hope that Daelyn gets along with the other kids.”

While Orthrus was not completely satisfied with this answer, but he had his own problems, and needed to order the information he had gained over the last three years. The information was about a lot of topics concerning dark and blood mana, he had researched the basic of the most common forms of death magic and blood magic, blood warlocks, blood mages, rot mages, necromancers, undead summoners, and much more. He had tried to gain as much information as possible to help the little guy, and from his own interest, but with his early awakening he needed to get some things into order. He had about seven years to teach this child, before the system kicked in and Daelyn would have to be ready to be self-sustainable and able to progress his magic on his own. His magic might not depend on his level, but his overall strength mostly did, and remaining weak was not an option.

Just as Lyvia and Grey were about to led away by Gob, Orthrus said one thing to them.

“Come back in one week, I will need to prepare some things to start his lessons early. He will need to learn a lot before his tenth birthday.”

Lyvia and Grey complied to his request with a simple nod before Gob escorted them through the extensive library towards the door. As he opened the door, he saw them off with worry in his small beady eyes as he had seen Daelyn’s state, but his worries were quickly put to rest by Lyvia.

“Don’t worry, he will just need some rest. He might also be back in a few days to read here, so you better be ready with a few books for him to read.”

Gob quickly brightened as he opened the door and saw the couple off with a polite and genuine goodbye.

After Lyvia and Grey had left Orthrus’ house and Gob had closed the door, they could not help but sigh. They had never expected this morning to be as stressful as it was, Daelyn awakened two years early, with an unheard combination of magics!

They could only cringe at the thought of the playdate. While it was detectable that Daelyn had awakened, someone had to specifically look at him to see, but it still brought them worries.

Daelyn could not use his powers at the playdate, and they could only hope no one found! They sure as hell weren’t going to cancel the playdate because of this danger! If it wasn’t now, it was going to be never at this rate! Daelyn would end up as a magic obsessed hermit!

With a longwinded sigh and a look of understanding in their eyes as they locked gazes, they set off towards their home, to prepare for the playdate later in the day.