Chapter 377: Drain Domain skill tree
Rio looked at the army of aliens surrounding him with a smile, his sword gleaming in the fiery breath of hellfire that burned and vaporized all the blood it had absorbed in this massacre.
Since the fight started a few minutes ago, he had killed two groups of dark sapin aliens, making up a body count of around 20-30 people.
Their charred corpses and splashed organs littered the ground, giving the peaceful forest a peek of hungry battlegrounds.
"Did you have to kill them?" Valtor asked, his back pressed against Rio as he sliced the neck of another alien and kicked the corpse away.
The proud rival had just returned after taking a look around the camp when he saw the crowd and noticed the ongoing bloody battle.
He wanted to stand by and just pretend not to see it, but some idiot identified him as Rio's friend and attacked him too, hence pulling another fighter for their already losing battle.
"We could've just searched around and left the town without anyone noticing, but you had to start a riot, didn't you?"
Rio heard the complaint from the shadow assassin but gave no response, and focused on his battle.
From his understanding this world was a battle hungry planet.
The Will of the World, which required its natives to fight wars every couple years, was nothing but a villain for the plot and the protagonist.
So him being the top villain, he decided to help this poor peasant from the primary arcs.
How?
By giving it what it wants. More blood, more wars and even more deaths.
(Since protagonist will probably kill the final villain, stop the wars and settle for peace, why not let him leave no one alive for that said peace.)
"Kill da hoomans."
"Taraiter."
"Fuck Outlanders."
"Murdar him."
Shouts and curses came to his ears constantly during the battle, with more people just surrounding the scene than coming forward to stop him or help the darks.
(Dark Sapin was too messy, so I simply changed it to darks now.)
'Guess even if they formed an alliance for this war, not everyone's friendly.' Rio thought after looking at the surrounding Sapin and other races just standing by
The tenacity of darks to tank the damage and passively heal themselves using nature's energy had become a curse for many during this battle.
As Rio's hellfire constantly burned them whole nonstop, and Valtor's Drain chain started to suck away all their energy with each inflicted wound from his daggers.
The dead comrades in this case were considered lucky compared to the ones who survived, but had to live for many minutes in hellish pain.
Rio watched as Valtor tied an alien with shadow magic, making him unable to escape or dodge, before slicing him with the double daggers.
As his knife took the first kill for its owner, the shadow behind Valtor wiggled, like it came alive and morphed into the shape of a sanctum tree**. Its branches moving in all directions with Valtor as the center, tying all the targets in place for him to slaughter.
If this was a game, one would be able to see red damage pings flying over everyone's heads every couple of seconds.
This was the ability from Valtor's main skill set, called Drain Domain.
Once it's activated, anyone within 5 meters of Valtor's distance is basically a fish on the chopping board. Unless they possessed extreme agility to dodge the shadow tree branch's attack effects, or had enough health and mana to outlast the skill duration.
'You sure you can't get me this skill set?' Rio couldn't help but question his system again. God knows he really loved this..
[Do you want a whole pantheon on your back? With elder gods coming for your head and taking you on a trip down the shadow realms.] System replied by usual list of consequences.
"Forget it. Nyx's Nera Nightmare is a much better skill set." Rio compromised, making system throw another snarky teasing comment at his face.
[Grapes are sour.] Angoor khatte h miyan.
'...'.
While Rio admired his skills, Valtor on the other hand was fully focused on the massacre.
With his current rank and mana, he could barely maintain this domain skill for 30-40 seconds. Hence to make the most out of it, he couldn't make a slightest mistake.
For the next half a minute, he fully reflected how dangerous the avatar of an assassin God and disciple of the Dark Knight can be. (Will tell u in detail later on.)
When his mana started to run out, he started using the second ability of his skills, Drain chain.
As the black blood of dark sapin touched the dagger in his hand, it slowly started glowing.
"Here it comes." Rio commented in anticipation.
Watching as the light on the dagger intensified, how in a few mere seconds the alien with over 7 feet tall height and muscular physique was sucked dry and left on ground as a shriveled corpse with nothing but twitchy bones and loose skin.
[It really is scary.]
System spoke the words in Rio's mind before he could.
By the time both the drain skills went into cooldown Valtor was already backed to a tree, panting heavily. The ground all around him, covered with the mummified corpses of the aliens he killed.
Nearly 30 .
"And you said I'm cruel." Rio teased as he kicked a Sapin trying to sneak out from the tree and attack Valtor.
"Aren't you?" Valtor replied, looking back at Rio. Watching as the whole forest behind him seemed to be dyed in red and black. Pieces of monsters scattered like meat thrown at a butcher's shop.
Bloody threads were vibrating in the air, cutting the aliens in several parts as they spoke this very instant.
Poor fellows with high healing factors were thrown into a cocoon of threads, where they suffered torture of getting slaughtered over and over again, until their bodies gave up and they perished for good.
His mastery over threads was getting better and better, and soon it will be time when he could go and meet his favorite norn fate goddess again.
"Here, drink this." Rio said, throwing a high level mana recovery potion at Valtor.
"How many of these do you even have?" Valtor said in surprise, wondering how this guy even sneaked in so many expensive potions with two elders watching, before remembering some rumors about him and raising his hand and interrupting him. "No, don't answer. The less I know the better."
'Is that viking elder really going this far to get him as his disciple?' Valtor thought to himself.
Rio looked at him with a cheeky proud smile before turning around and closing his fist. Making all the threads moving with his fingers disappear instantly.
"We've been killing for such a long time, why do you think no one came to stop us, or save them?" Valtor asked in a serious tone.
"Probably cause we did what they wanted to do but couldn't do." Rio replied, looking at a man dressed in noble clothes, and staring at them from a distance. "Big wars forces us to make allies out of lower enemies, but it doesn't mean their enmity is over."
"Yes, but don't you think, us killing their partners and roaming free is bad for the unity and the morale before any war." Valtor said in confusion, making Rio smile.
"You're right, and that's probably why we'll be hunted and captured now.."
Before Rio's words finished a group of soldiers appeared and started surrounding them. Their hands holding a formation flag and a mage's staff.
"Drop your weapons. Raise your hands and surrender. Refusing to obey any order will be seen as an act of disrespect towards the Shin army and met with critical punishment."
"And here we go." Rio said staring at the army of nearly 200 hybrid people standing in front of him with their weapons drawn.
(Hybrids here meants Nefrats, a race of Phronesia, which is mixture of 2 or more separate origins. Like simir+sapin.. Or simir+human.. Or human+monster... Xyz - they all come under one race here. No higher halfbreed,no lower halfbreed, just Nefrat...)
Valtor looked at Rio's expression which showed half calmness and half excitement and knew what was coming next.
"Please tell me you're not thinking of... I have a teleportation scroll, we can...."
"Nothing like a massacre to start the morning." Rio said, as he opened his arms and the buzzing sound rang all over again, followed by ear piercing screams that shook the ground.
Zrrrrrrrrrrrr---- Arghhhhhh aaaaaaaaa aarghh
"Fuck" (Valtor)
###
*** explanations
Sanctum Tree - A sacred tree found in realms of sinners. Something which is said to be a medium connecting mortals and gods, yet needs sacrifices to survive. A tree which gives life to it's owner/devotee/believer - yet takes life away from it's enemies/opponents/non-believers.
A tree whose flowers and fruits hold healing abilities, yet branches birth a deadly poison. A perfect match between good and bad.
Take away the flowers and the branches will rot, take away the branches and there'll be no fruits.
It represent the same coin different sides theory, about one needing the other, yet never accepting other or coexisting together..