Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 892: A Slumbering Messenger - Part 2

While the monster lurked with uncertainty as the vessels had come to an abrupt stop, Victor’s spirit took over the ship’s controls and sent them back to the shore while his spiritual body descended onto the tentacled body of the monster with silver dark lightning. Like the shards of blades crafted from thunder and light, he was followed by crackling swords of the purest light magic.

Pushing his colossal blade into the body of the monster, Victor stood on top of the beast with his feet planted firmly thanks to the spiked armor boot, which he’d used countless times to board the spines of monstrous dragons.

"UAGHHHH!" The howling of pain from the beast sent waves throughout the ocean, causing tall tides to form, and the thrashing of its tentacles only agitated the ocean some more. Despite being assailed with the weight of crashing waves, the king of crows drew his blade outward and kept striking the beast again and again.

Running along its spine with the weapon all the way into the monster’s flesh, he carved scars as tall as the walls of his dark castle, and even when his spiritual body was pulled into the water, the king did not stop the assault, as the lack of air was no longer a problem to him in death.

"What better feast to hone my blade than a mother dragon!" Screaming out proudly, the king jumped underwater, and with dragonic wings formed from the blood of the beast, he readied his blade and flung himself towards the beast’s eyes like an arrow. Aiming right in the middle of its two bulging dark eyes, his blade and his armor tore through the monster’s flesh. However, losing the strength from the strike past mid-way, he found himself in the thrashed remains of the beast’s brain. "If you can still hear me, monster, know that your blood and body shall serve me in your death. Your children and your kind will fall under the heels of Mother Elenaria, and only in her service in your death shall your tainted existence be worth more than the life of an ant."

Oozing pure hatred for dragon kind, the king slipped out of the monster’s body. With ease, his astral form let him free himself, but as the beast’s body, as tall as a castle and wide as a kingdom, began to sink, the king’s eyes began to glow. Stretching his hand forward, he curled his fingers, and in response, the blood vessels and the tentacles attached to a squid-like body turned into a ball.

"To the surface. You must repent for your wretched existence, you monstrous beast." As the blood and water around the monster began to boil–all thanks to the king’s ability to control not just light but also the blood and bones of his enemies–its body started making its own way to the surface. No longer a foe or a formidable enemy, but as the feast that shall sate the hungry of the king’s allies. For only in death was a dragon worth anything.

’Wretched monster. Who knows how many innocent lives it has claimed so far?’ Finally coming back on the surface, the king’s anger was sated upon seeing the dragonic kraken’s skin turning red from the intense heat from within. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret deep in his heart. And as his gaze fell somberly to his feet, he squeezed his fist and wondered... ’Had I been alive, perhaps I could’ve saved more people?’

A paragon of justice and just behavior, Victor’s mind was ever plagued by what he could do and could’ve done–even for those whom he had never met before–perhaps his own past had something to do with such intense empathy–after all, only the goddess Elenaria believed in him and accepted him when not even his parents would.

"No more, will you be the face of terror amongst these parts." Lifting his head, the king drew a closed fist to his chest and struck it against his heart. "I, Victor Dex Dellhusk, claim this part of this ocean as a domain for my mother! All dragons and horrors in this territory are warned to flee or be considered the enemy of the mother star!"

Shooting one last glance above, the king made sure that the iron tridents weren’t present. And as his gaze fell down again, he struck his sword into the water and exclaimed.

"Rise! My warriors! Rise for the king calls on your might! Rise for your duty is not yet over! Rise for your children and the children of your children still live! For their sake! For the sake of their children and our own! I command you to die once more, and however many times it takes to rid this world of the profane!" Heaving a sigh, the king added with a whisper that gradually turned into a war cry. "Enough slumber, your eternal torment awaits. Do not recoil, do not refrain, do not desert. Lay Claim! WE HAVE CONQUERED THE IRON BIRDS! WE HAVE CONQUERED THE BREATHER OF FLAMES! WE’VE SHATTERED MOUNTAINS AND RAZED CONTINENTS TO DESERTS! AND NOW BEFORE OUR FINAL CONQUEST THAT SHALL BE AMONGST THE STARS, OUR FINAL DUTY AWAITS!"

To the word of the last true giant, the ocean rumbled, and the spirit of the dead that inhabited the bodies of dead dragons and other beasts rose from within the waters and reared their heads. All but spirit and bones, they’d been chasing after the king for a while, and now, with his roar guiding him to his direction, they’d finally found their lord eternal.

Raising their heads one after the other from within the waters, the dragons and the beasts screamed their hearts out. Joining the king in his war cry, they quickly spread throughout the ocean, some underwater, some taking flight to spy on enemies. The claim had been made by the king, and now it was their duty to deliver this land to him. Doesn’t matter if there stands a beast in their way, a demon general, or even the demon lord itself. One way or the other, the king’s demands must be met.

’I should return to the ships.’ As powerful as he was, the king’s spirit was aged much like his body at the time of his death. He had command and strength, but like any living creature, he too required rest to recover and remain in his astral form away from the iron tridents. Without it, his mind would lie dormant within the ship, and thus, with his leftover strength, he turned his gaze to the shores where they’d come from and began flying in that direction.

As fast as the tridents themselves, it would take only a few hours for him to catch up. In the meantime, his servants will clear up any other monsters. Deep in thought, he made his way back–not realizing that the monster had struck him in his thigh with a peculiar-looking blade. Only upon reaching the vessel did the king notice the blade and take it out of his body.

Confused as to how something material could be stuck in his spiritual body, he decided to take a closer look. What he saw was a gilded blade with debossed words of Archaic arcane–not a language many were studied in, but thankfully, the king was amongst the few who’d been alive long enough to be proficient in it, as it was his first language.

’Hmm... The chosen of Athenia should see this.’ To his surprise, it was a message for Raven. Not from the beast, but someone far more important. Realizing that, the king also figured out something peculiar, and his gaze turned in the direction of the beast whom he’d slayed. ’That dragon was a messenger? From a goddess of all people. Is that why it didn’t put up much of a fight and was aiming for the main vessel with the hero in it?’

Such questions plagued the giant, but the monster was long dead and its body roasted, no answer could be had, and the only thing the king could do was hand over the blade to Raven and hope that the hero could make more sense of the cryptic message than him.