Read Novel Full Chapter 204: Massacre
Chapter 204: Massacre
Then he summoned his hounds.
The Bloodhound Creed.
"Gorva," Jorghan spoke, his voice deeper now, carrying harmonics that made the air vibrate.
"Awaken."
[BLOODHOUND CREED: PACK SUMMONING]
[05/12]
[Invoking ancestral bond with Gorva, No-rva, Sol-rva, Zo-rva, Tuk-rva
Summoning in progress...]
A blood tear formed in the empty and tore open in five places around Jorghan, crimson portals bleeding into existence like wounds in the fabric of space. From each portal emerged a hound, but these were no normal animals.
Each stood ten to twelve feet at the shoulder, their bodies composed entirely of blood essence given temporary physical form. They had the shape of massive hunting dogs, mastiff-like builds with powerful jaws and lean, muscular frames, but their substance was flowing crimson energy that rippled and reformed with each movement.
Their eyes glowed the same molten color as Jorghan’s, marking them as extensions of his will. Their teeth weren’t bone but crystallized blood essence, harder than steel, capable of tearing through most materials like tissue paper.
Gorva emerged last, the alpha of the pack, standing slightly larger than his companions at nearly 15 feet tall now. He padded to Jorghan’s side and pressed his massive head against his bonded master’s hand.
They seem to grow along with him. Every time his bloodline progressed, they would unlock more of their abilities too.
"The entire estate," Jorghan replied aloud.
"Everyone bearing arms, everyone who serves the Moorne Corporation in a military capacity, everyone who would stand between me and my objectives. Hunt them. Kill them. Leave only those who surrender immediately or flee without fighting."
"The essence of the fallen, they are all yours," Jorghan confirmed.
"Devour what you need to maintain your forms. The excess flows to me."
The five hounds growled in unison, a sound like distant thunder, their eagerness to hunt palpable in the night air.
Jorghan placed his hand on the gate, thirty feet of reinforced steel and advanced alloys designed to withstand explosives and awakened abilities.
Blood essence flowed from his palm into the metal, invading its structure and finding the weak points in its crystalline matrix. He compressed, twisted, and exerted his will against physics and engineering.
The gate exploded inward with a sound like a cannon firing. Metal shrieked and tore, defensive systems sparked and died, and alarms began screaming across the compound.
Jorghan walked through the ruined entrance, his hounds flowing around him like a crimson tide, and the slaughter began.
The Moorne Corporation’s military response was immediate and professional. Within thirty seconds of the alarm, lights blazed across the estate, illuminating emergency gathering points. Within sixty seconds, the first response team had mobilized twenty soldiers in tactical gear, carrying weapons that blended Earth technology with essence-enhanced ammunition.
They took positions with practiced efficiency, creating overlapping fields of fire, ensuring no attacker could advance without exposing themselves to multiple shooters.
Their commander, a grizzled veteran named Sergeant Horace Burett, keyed his radio.
"Unknown hostile at main gate. A single individual appears to be awakened. Requesting—"
He stopped talking when he saw what had actually breached the perimeter.
An eight-foot-tall elf with pale red skin and eyes like volcanic fury, surrounded by five massive hounds made of flowing blood. The elf walked with absolute confidence, no attempt at cover or evasion, just steady forward progress that suggested he considered twenty armed soldiers less of an obstacle and more of an inevitability.
"FIRE!" Sergeant ordered.
Twenty weapons opened up simultaneously. Bullets tore through the night, essence-enhanced rounds that could penetrate most defensive abilities. A sustained barrage that should have shredded any individual target regardless of their power.
The blood hounds moved.
They blurred into motion with speed that made them nearly invisible, their blood essence forms allowing velocity that defied their apparent mass. They intercepted the incoming fire, their bodies absorbing bullets that would have killed normal creatures, the projectiles simply disappearing into their flowing forms and being converted into more essence.
Then they reached the soldiers.
The first hound hit the left flank like a crimson missile. Its jaws closed on a soldier’s throat, crushing windpipe and spine in one bite. It released, spun, and its tail whipped around to strike another soldier with force that shattered ribs and ruptured organs. The third soldier tried to dodge, but the hound flowed around his movement like liquid, reforming behind him and tearing through his back with claws that manifested from pure blood essence.
Three soldiers dead in four seconds.
The second and third hounds hit the center formation together, working in perfect coordination. One went low, taking legs out from under soldiers and leaving them vulnerable. The other went high, leaping over the falling bodies to attack those still standing. Jaws and claws tore through tactical gear that might as well have been tissue paper.
The fourth hound flanked right, moving in wide arc to attack from the soldiers’ blind side. It was the most patient of the pack, waiting until panic began to break formation before striking with devastating efficiency. Five soldiers fell before they even realized they were under attack from that direction.
Gorva, the alpha, didn’t attack the soldiers at all. He positioned himself between Jorghan and any potential threat, his massive body a living shield, his molten eyes tracking every movement, ready to intercept anything that might endanger his bonded master.
Jorghan himself simply walked forward through the carnage. Blood essence swirled around him in defensive spirals, catching the occasional bullet that made it past his hounds, absorbing the projectiles, and converting their kinetic energy into fuel for his abilities.
Sergeant Burett watched his entire team get slaughtered in less than twenty seconds. He’d been a soldier for fifteen years and had fought in three wars and countless smaller engagements. He’d seen awakeners in action and had trained specifically to counter superhuman threats.
Nothing in his experience had prepared him for this.
"Retreat!" he screamed into his radio.
"FULL RETREAT! We need an S-rank response immediately! The hostile is—"
A blood hound appeared in front of him, materializing from crimson mist faster than his eyes could track. Its jaws opened, revealing crystallized fangs that gleamed in the emergency lights.
"Wait," Jorghan’s voice carried across the killing ground, and the hound froze mid-strike.
"That one surrenders. I can see it in his blood flow, heart rate dropping from combat adrenaline to flight response, and muscles relaxing from firing stance. He’s choosing to flee rather than fight."
Sergeant Burett stood frozen, his weapon lowered, his body language screaming submission even though his conscious mind hadn’t fully processed the decision yet.
Jorghan studied him for a moment, those molten eyes seeing through flesh to the blood flowing beneath.
"Run. Tell whoever leads your forces that resistance is death. Surrender is survival. Those are the only options."
Sergeant Burett ran.
Behind him, his entire team lay dead or dying, their blood seeping into the manicured lawn, their lives ended in seconds by creatures they couldn’t fight and abilities they couldn’t counter.
[MANA DEVOURING: BATTALION ABSORPTION]
[Targets eliminated: 19 awakened soldiers (low to mid-tier)
Mana extracted: 847 units
Blood essence absorbed: 1,240 units
Total reserves: 4,184 mana units / 3,334 blood essence units]
[Pack sustenance: 340 units distributed among hounds
Net gain: 507 mana units]
[Note: Tactical coordination improved: +8%]
Jorghan felt the power flowing into him, the life force of the fallen soldiers being consumed and converted into fuel for his bloodline abilities. Each death fed his strength, each absorbed essence made him more dangerous, and each converted mana unit brought him closer to the reserves he’d need for the larger battle ahead.
It was efficient. Clinical.
The natural order of predator and prey applied to sentient beings.
His father would have been horrified.
Ser’gu Sol’vur had been powerful but had retained some degree of restraint, some lingering attachment to the idea that mass slaughter was something to be avoided when possible.
Jorghan had no such restraint. These soldiers served the organization that had taken Grace and killed Scarlett. They’d made their choice when they accepted employment from the Moorne Corporation.
Now they paid the price for that choice.
Alarms screamed across the estate. Every building lit up like noon, emergency protocols activating, and defensive systems powering up. The Moorne Corporation military forces had been caught off-guard by the initial breach, but they were professionals.
They adapted.
The second wave came from three directions simultaneously. Seventy-five soldiers total, including fifteen awakened combatants with mid- to high-tier abilities. They’d had time to coordinate, to establish fields of fire, and to deploy heavier weapons that could theoretically stop even powerful awakeners.
They advanced in disciplined formation, using cover, maintaining communication, and executing tactics that had worked against every previous threat the estate had faced.
Against Jorghan and his bloodhounds, their tactics were sophisticated suicide.
The hounds split up, each taking a different approach vector, using the estate’s buildings and landscaping for cover despite not actually needing it.
They attacked from unexpected angles, flowed through spaces too small for physical bodies, reformed behind defensive positions, and tore through soldiers before anyone could react.