Carrozzo’s dying eyes glared at Gajou.
“What…are you doing, Gajou Akatsuki…?!”
Gajou pulled the rim of his fedora over his eyes, suppressing his anger as he growled. “Quit the third-rate acting job, you terrorist bastard. There’s no way the real Carrozzo would be pronouncing my name right… Besides, you’ve got the stink of death all over you.”
“Ugh…”
Carrozzo—or rather, the living dead that was once Carrozzo—made a short grunt as if thrown off his game.
With his rifle, Gajou proceeded to unload shot after shot toward the ground, taking out new corpses as they crawled out of the earth one after another. Gajou dispatched the unending wave of emerging zombies.
“Necromancy… I see,” he muttered. “I thought it was odd the barrier would be broken, but you buried corpses all around the ruin before we even got here. Then you animated them and attacked the camp from the inside—”
Dead bodies had no body warmth, no heartbeats, and projected no bloodlust. Even the best detection gear would never expose buried corpses. Thanks to their proximity to the powerful magical energy coursing through the underground tomb, the sorcerers that had come to the excavation site hadn’t sensed the presence of corpses, either.
The enemy had capably laid its trap. Even if Liana’s barrier couldn’t be broken from the outside, it could not fend off an enemy that had lain in wait on the inside from the very beginning.
“A terrorist group that uses necromancy… I’ve heard of that MO. You’re the Black Death Emperor Front!”
The sorcerer controlling Carrozzo shouted with the guard’s voice. “Gajou Akatsuki, the Death Returnee…you have done well to see through my plan…but you are too late!”
His yell signaled new zombies to surface from the ground all around them. Their thick hides made it clear these were not human corpses. Their stout flesh was enough to repel the bullets of Gajou’s rifle.
“Beast men living dead—?!”
Overwhelmed, Gajou took the hint and retreated. A beast man’s physical strength and agility were fearsome even after zombification.
The Black Death Emperor Front was the name of a terrorist organization born in the Warlord’s Empire. They were beast-man supremacists rebelling against vampiric rule over the Dominions. They were also militants dedicated to destroying the Holy Ground Treaty, established so humans and demons could coexist peacefully. They took their name from their leader, the Black Death Emperor, a beast man as well as an astute necromancer spreading terror to every corner of the globe. The enemy far exceeded even his worst expectations.
“You bunch of morons… You know what’s in this ruin, and you’re attacking anyway?!”
The man controlling Carrozzo brushed off Gajou’s question.
“We know not. Nor do we care. However, we do know that the filthy vampire primogenitors have taken a keen interest in this ruin, enough to send the heiress of the Caruana family to keep an eye on it! That gives us more than enough reason to burn this place to ash!”
“Tch…!”
Gajou’s expression twisted in impatience. As he thought, the ruin was their target. But he couldn’t let them get past him into the ruin—not with Kojou and Nagisa inside.
The necromancer laughed in Carrozzo’s voice.
“Do not be concerned. The treasure resting in this ruin shall serve us well. We shall extract all there is to know about the ruin from the brain of your corpse—”
“Hey, it’s not like a rotting soup-for-brains like you can understand what’s in my head!”
Gajou’s rifle ran out of ammo right around when he’d finally managed to take the zombies out of commission. Its duty done, he cast the rifle aside and pulled out a new weapon from the back of his jacket—a sawed-off shotgun.
“Sorry, Carrozzo…I couldn’t save you!”
“Hmph… As if a pea shooter like that could bring this body down—”
The burly, zombified form ferociously charged at Gajou. A direct tackle would no doubt take him down with one blow. But he made no move to evade. Instead, he trained the shotgun’s barrel at his old friend and blasted him in the face.
A buckshot cartridge fired from a shotgun could hit a wide area at the cost of penetration. Now that Carrozzo was a living dead, there should have been no way such a round would stop him.
And yet Carrozzo released a terrible scream and rolled onto the ground.
Freed from the sorcerer’s control, he had reverted to a mere corpse, lying motionless with his eyes closed.
In his place, a figure wobbled out from behind a nearby clump of boulders. It was the necromancer who had controlled Carrozzo. He groaned in anguish and shot Gajou with a hateful stare.
Gajou loaded a new shell as he said in a somber voice, “An anti-demon, silver-palladium fléchette round. It even works on your astral body.”
The bullet had been infused with ritual energy. The tiny fléchettes filling the cartridge had delivered damage not only to Carrozzo’s zombified body, but directly to the sorcerer controlling it, too.
“Damn you…damn you! A lowly human maiming my flesh like this—?!” the man wailed, wiping off the fresh blood flowing from his brow.
Every muscle in his body bulged as he shifted forms to morph into an enormous figure—a huge beast man with a pitch-black mane.
Gajou’s face froze in astonishment.
“A beast man using necromancy…?!”
There were precious few stout-bodied beast men that had also learned the art of spells. Being an exception marked him as a member of a select few families that inherited such powerful demonic energy. Besides the Black Death Emperor himself, there existed only one other person in the Black Death Emperor Front with the power to pull it off—
“Don’t tell me…you’re Golan Hazaroff, the Prince of Death?!”
The dark beast man howled.
“I praise you for knowing my name. I shall send you to the afterlife with honor, Gajou Akatsuki!”
Gajou met his gaze and fired his shotgun. However, the beast man evaded the barrage with overwhelmingly swift reactions. With speed beyond what Gajou could track with the naked eye, the man rushed in and drove a powerful knee strike toward him.
“Gah…?!”
The blow bent and snapped the shotgun, and Gajou’s face twisted in agony. The dull sound of breaking bones echoed. Gajou spat out blood as he flew backward.
The flames enveloping the burning base camp dyed the pre-dawn sky scarlet.
7
“Nn…!”
The girl Kojou was carrying in his arms let out a small moan and stirred.
With a flutter of her long eyelashes, she opened her eyes. They were still somewhat unfocused but seemed otherwise normal. She was out of the trance.
“…Ko…jou…?”
Kojou did his best to maintain a calm as he spoke.
“Awake, Nagisa? Might feel like a waste, but you should probably close your eyes a little longer.”
The state of the surrounding area unnerved her. The blond girl trapped in a giant block of ice, the countless icicles reminiscent of thorns, the subterranean stone chamber, the soldiers invading—and the beautiful female vampire that had protected Kojou and Nagisa from the horde of zombified guards.
The vampiress’s perfectly coiffed hair was now disheveled, her entire body covered in blood splatter. She seemed to have sustained her own injuries as well. However, all the zombies assaulting the ruin lay fallen, corpses once more.
She, an Old Guard, had laid waste to dozens of zombies single-handedly. If she had not been shielding Kojou and Nagisa, she would have probably emerged without a scratch. Her overwhelming combat capability brought no shame to the reputation of the Warlord’s Empire nobility.
Nagisa weakly called out to her. “Liana…”
When Liana noticed, she smiled, albeit conflictedly.
“I am sorry. I had my hands rather full with them.”
Two beasts were curled around the woman’s si
des. Each was a huge, glowing wolf, one gold, one silver. They were probably between three and four meters long from head to tail. They were clearly not normal life forms, but rather, magical energy so dense they had taken physical form.
“Beast Vassals…,” Nagisa said.
“Yes. Beasts summoned from another world that reside in our vampiric blood…sentient masses of demonic energy. Please be at ease. No matter how many terrorists there may be, they will not touch the coffin or either of you as long as Skol and Hati are with me.”
Kojou echoed a word.
“Terrorists…?”
He didn’t understand why a group of self-declared terrorists would assault a ruin in the middle of nowhere.
Liana paused briefly, choosing her words carefully as she spoke.
“This is likely the work of the Black Death Emperor Front—beast-man supremacists. They are international criminals claiming beast men are foremost among demons and agitating for the dissolution of the Holy Ground Treaty.”
“Why is a group like that after this ruin?” Nagisa inquired.
“They are likely aware that this ruin is connected to the Kaleid Blood. To beast-man supremacists, vampire primogenitors are their most hated of enemies.”
Kojou gasped. “I see… So if Avrora really is the Fourth Primogenitor…”
“Yes. To them, she is worth destroying, even at the cost of their own lives.”
Liana sighed. Truthfully, she wanted to rush to Gajou’s side and protect him at that very moment. However, as the survey team’s ace in a fight, Liana could not leave. After all, the Fairy’s Coffin, the terrorists’ target, was right there with her and the siblings.
“Avrora…?” Nagisa asked, perplexed.
Kojou smiled a little, pointing at the block of ice behind them.
“The name of the sleeping princess. Liana gave it to her.”
“Oh…I see.”
Nagisa softly squinted up at the girl trapped in ice.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just…feel like she’s happy somehow—”
“She? You mean Avrora…?”
Kojou felt a slight unease as he studied Nagisa’s face. He’d thought the trance had lifted, but perhaps it hadn’t. Or maybe part of Nagisa and Avrora’s shared consciousness was still connected—
As this hypothesis sent a great fear through Kojou, Nagisa’s entire body suddenly stiffened. Kojou crouched down with her as she fiercely trembled in apparent terror.
“…Nagisa?”
“Something’s…coming. What…is this…? No… I’m scared…! Kojou, run…!”
“Hey, Nagisa?!”
His little sister’s extreme reaction made him look all around the area. Then a boom, the sound of an explosion, accompanied the collapse of one of the walls of the stonework room.
A huge beast man emerged, beating away the rubble pouring down upon him. This dog-headed, black-maned figure must have been nearly three meters tall. Thanks to his incredibly huge frame, he’d been unable to enter the ruin by coming through the passage.
The dark beast man laughed derisively as he stared at the vampiress.
“—So you were here, Liana Caruana, making a mere human fight me while you quivered like a wild rabbit in a hole in the ground. Just as I would expect of the famously timid daughter of Duke Caruana…taking after her cowardly father.”
Liana’s cheeks flushed. “…Silence, foul beast! I shall permit no further belittling of my father!”
Apparently, the beast man not only knew Liana’s identity but was using it to taunt her. Liana’s predictable response brought a satisfied smile to the beast man’s face. “Don’t make me laugh, little girl. What can you accomplish? Gajou Akatsuki was far more resilient than you.”
The beast man’s implication that he had already disposed of Gajou completely robbed Liana of her composure. In a rage, she launched her own Beast Vassal at him.
“—Skol, tear him to pieces!”
A vampire’s Beast Vassal was a powerful mass of demonic energy. Surely not even the stout physique of a beast man could endure a head-on collision with the powerful servants. Anyone would have been certain of that—save for the beast man himself.
“Do you really think such a Beast Vassal can stand against the Prince of Death?!”
Liana’s charging servant turned into a beam of light, but the pitch-black foe blocked it with his right arm alone. He pinned it in place and moved to squash it completely.
Liana stood rooted in place, dazed at the unbelievable sight.
“Wha…?!”
A beast man able to trade blows with a Beast Vassal unaided—surely such a thing was impossible?
Before her shocked expression, the jet-black man transformed. Now he was not a beast man but a complete beast—one swollen to several times his previous size. His flesh brimmed with dense, powerful demonic energy equal to—no, superior to Liana’s Beast Vassal.
As she realized what the man’s power truly was, she exclaimed, “It can’t be…divine bestialization?!”
It was a special ability possessed only by a tiny handful of the uppermost ranks of beast men. Through use of vast demonic energy, they temporarily transformed their own flesh and blood into divine beasts, beings of myth and legend on par with angels and dragons.
The beast man explained, “We are not like you vampires, relying on the power of summoned beasts. We are the descendants of the demon wolves that consumed the hearts of giants. It is beast men that are the pinnacle of demonkind! Know the power of the superior race of the surface!!”
Liana recovered from her shock and commanded her other Beast Vassal to attack.
“Enough babbling…! Tear him to pieces, Hati!”
Driving back the transformed foe with two Beast Vassals at once was an attack that abandoned all attempt at defense. But—
“Ka-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…! As expected of a Warlord’s Empire noble, even one fallen from grace. Stubborn girl! But victory is indeed mine!”
“You sound like a sore loser!”
Liana’s expression twisted as she unleashed nearly all the demonic energy she could afford. This gave her tunnel vision, slowing her reaction to danger.
As if waiting for that very moment, several zombies flew out of the rubble in the stone room, bearing down upon the now-helpless Liana. The pitch-black beast man had purposely smashed through the wall during his entrance so that he could hide corpses under the rubble.
“Living dead—?!”
The beast man fiercely smiled, certain of victory.
“Too late, Liana Caruana.”
Vampires were said to be the mightiest of demons because they possessed trump cards of overwhelming power: their Beast Vassals. But physically, they were comparatively frail. That was especially true of Liana, a slender woman not blessed with a strong physique. Without the protection of her Beast Vassals, she had no way to withstand the hail of gunfire from the zombified guards.
The zombies blindly fired bullets that pierced Liana’s chest and gouged her heart. Kojou could only watch in a daze.
“Lia…na…?!”
Even the young Kojou knew at a glance. An Old Guard vampire could not regenerate from such a deep wound. It was fatal. Liana could no longer be saved—
Nagisa’s voice struggled out from her throat. “Ah…”
Liana’s body swayed. Her eyes were filled with tears as her now-pale lips weakly formed the words, “I’m sorry, Doc… I…”
Her words never reached Kojou’s and Nagisa’s ears, drowned out by the beast man’s roar. The transformed creature beat away the Beast Vassals that had lost their master. Unable to maintain physical form, the familiars’ vast demonic energy burst apart and scattered. The ruin began to collapse from the shock wave.
And Liana, covered in blood, gently toppled forward. Nagisa screamed to the heavens.
“No… Nooooooooooooooooooo—!”
The dense demonic energy hovering in the ruin, the aftereffects of combat, and Liana’
s thoughts at the moment of her demise flooded the young priestess’s heart.
The jet-black beast man stared scornfully at the anguished Nagisa. But he immediately lost interest in her and raised his head higher. No doubt he had judged that the young human siblings were not worth the effort to kill.
“The Fourth Primogenitor—?”
He gazed at the block of ice behind Kojou and Nagisa, as well as the girl slumbering within.
Liana’s rampaging Beast Vassals had half-wrecked the huge block of ice, leaving part of the girl’s lifeless body exposed to outside air. However, she showed no signs of awakening. There was no reason why the limp form trapped inside the ice should rise.
“I have no interest in whether the ruin is genuine or not, but the fact Liana Caruana risked her life to protect it makes it worth smashing…,” he said. “Young siblings, curse your ill fortune for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The zombies had raised their guns before the beast man even finished his words. No doubt they intended to smash Avrora’s body to pieces in one volley so she could never be revived again, and the beast man was well aware Kojou and Nagisa beside her would be collateral damage—
“Ah…ahhh……,” Nagisa quietly cried.
Kojou embraced his suffering little sister as he desperately struggled against despair. Gajou wasn’t coming back. Liana was dead. There was no one left to protect them. The young Kojou had no way to take on the vile beast man and the zombies.
Even so, he did not give up. He needed to protect Nagisa. Think, Kojou urged himself.
Think, think, think. What can I do to save Nagisa? What can I—?
Time would not wait for Kojou’s decision.
“The legend of the Kaleid Blood ends here—blow her apart!” the beast man commanded.
The zombies pulled their triggers. The gun barrels all spewed fire.
8
The inside of the dimly lit ruin was buried in thick mist, gun smoke, and ice fragments—the remains of the zombies’ volley. Surely, the lifeless body of the girl trapped in ice, showered in innumerable bullets, had been ripped to fine shreds. Even if the girl really was the Fourth Primogenitor, she could not rise again.
Strike the Blood, Vol. 7: Kaleid Blood Page 5
