Elven Lies II Chapter 159: Blood Festival

CHAPTER 159

BLOOD FESTIVAL

“This is wrong.” Hans mumbled.

The situation was becoming nothing like he had expected.

“Blood magic.”

It reminded him of the first time he had seen it…

Not in Anfaleen’s but on his own self.

The way he unlocked his very first Book of Fate.

“Father knew this too—at least a bit of it.”

“—stop mumbling, boy. We have a mage to kill.“ Zilong interrupted.

Yet his fists were faster.

He lunged with all six arms, the force of his charge splitting the fractured stone beneath his feet.

“We can’t let him use the blood again—it takes time—we need to strike faster.”

He landed the strike.

The attack should’ve crushed the fortress wall or what remained of the keep.

Yet Anfaleen did not block it.

He stepped aside.

Not hurried.

Not strained.

Allowing the blow to graze him.

Zilong’s fist slammed into the ground…

Shattering it.

Stone erupted upward.

Dust swallowed the impact.

Anfaleen watched it settle but his eyes were darted to panting Theodred.

“It’s no use, Zilong.” He said, “Atelier…eh. he is spent. The Aura skill he used…It emptied his aura completely. He won’t be able to stop the blood awakening again.”

Zilong’s eye quickly traced Hans. Anfaleen was right. There was no speck of Aura left within Hans.

Yet there was something in the eyes.

—Restore—

He calmly said.

His sword “Kindness” followed.

Refuelling him again.

Restoring his aura reserves.

He chugged down two potions.

The empty vials shattered on the stone.

“There is my stamina too.”

He pointed his sword of light at the warlock.

“You were saying something.”

Wings of freedom came to life.

So did the blood chains targeting him.

Slithering across the stone like hunting serpents,

Ambushing.

As if they had minds of their own.

Denying him the battlefield between Anfaleen and Zilong.

None touched him yet.

He was swiftly moving between them,

Flying in unnatural curves.

“I can’t use Timeless Strikes… it could hit Zilong.”

Hans twisted mid-air, avoiding another crimson chain that snapped upward from the shattered stone.

“My speed isn’t enough to break through them… it’s like the battlefield knows where I’ll be before I move.”

Another blood-chain slithered past his wing, missing him by a breath.

“And Aura Blow is useless now… it empties everything just to disrupt the ritual.”

His mind raced faster than his flight.

“Only Solunox can help me.”

The chains thickened below him, weaving across the ground like a nest of serpents.

“But I can’t reach him.”

A crimson strand suddenly shot upward.

It wrapped around his ankle.

Hans’ body jerked violently as the chain tightened.

He tried to pull free—

But the chain did not behave like liquid.

It locked.

More strands rose instantly.

They twisted around the first like tightening coils.

Hans slashed downward with Kindness, severing one—

—but three more replaced it.

The ground beneath him began to move.

Not shifting.

Breathing.

The blood veins that had spread across the battlefield swelled outward.

They converged at one point.

Xandor saw it first.

“This is too far. Even for you, Anfaleen—”

Right below Hans.

The blood erupted.

Not as a splash.

As a shape.

A mass of crimson flesh tore itself out of the shattered earth, chains of blood stretching outward like living tendrils.

A body formed from pulsing scarlet muscle.

No bones.

No skin.

Only writhing blood and binding chains.

Its head opened like a grotesque flower of teeth.

From its sides burst long, whipping tendrils made entirely of hardened blood.

Each one snapping through the air like barbed chains.

Hans’ captured leg was dragged downward.

The creature rose higher,

Towering over the ruined battlefield.

A living horror of blood and chains.

A thing born from the incomplete ritual.

Anfaleen watched it emerge with calm interest.

“Ah. I hurried too much.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“It seems the ‘thing’ has begun defending itself.”

The monster’s tendrils lashed outward again—

Pulling Hans toward its gaping maw.

“He wasn’t there yet, but he was still a nuisance.”

Anfaleen’s gaze shifted from the struggling knight to the towering Red Demon Commander.

“Now,” he said quietly,

“your turn, foreigner.”

Zilong’s eyes narrowed.

The blood-born monstrosity dragged Hans closer to the snapping jaws behind it, crimson chains tightening around his legs.

“Let him go.” Zilong demanded.

Anfaleen did not even glance back at the creature.

“It will not kill him,” he said calmly. “Not yet. He is fascinating— AuraBlow—Solunox—a male with light element—and a stark image of the past. This is no coincidence.”

The warlock folded his hands behind his back.

“You see, he has been waiting for something.”

His pale eyes returned to Hans.

“For me to summon a spirit.”

Hans’ heart sank amid the struggle.

Anfaleen smiled faintly.

“You thought the God of Balance would devour it. Leaving me weak as the elven royal prick—Martys.”

Zilong frowned.

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

Anfaleen raised one hand slowly.

The blood storm circling him tightened, crimson threads weaving together like veins beneath skin.

“It looks like the hour of awakening is upon us,” he said as his eyes turned white,

“I stopped being a spirit contractor long ago.”

His voice carried across the ruined battlefield.

“I became something far more useful.”

The blood chains binding Hans tightened again.

“I struggled to bind life to death. Light to dark. Blood is the source, yet a medium was needed, that was what I lacked.”

For a moment, even the wind seemed to fall silent.

Fragments of different energies flickered faintly across Anfaleen’s body.

Dark.

Light.

Something older.

The remnants of things he had consumed.

Hans’ grip tightened around Kindness.

That explained the balance in his power.

Anfaleen had not bonded with spirits.

He had eaten them.

Anfaleen tilted his head slightly.

“You waited for the wrong opportunity, boy.”

Hans’ chest tightened.

To summon Solunox, the condition was absolute.

The spirit would only answer when a spirit of overwhelming corruption appeared—one whose karma had drowned in the suffering of countless souls.

A devoured spirit left nothing behind.

No presence.

No contract.

Nothing for Solunox to judge.

Nothing for him to devour.

Hans’ voice dropped to a whisper.

“So the chance…”

Anfaleen finished the sentence for him.

“…will never come.”

The blood chains jerked again, dragging Hans another step towards the creature’s maw.

Zilong’s energy flared violently.

Anfaleen’s gaze returned to him.

“Now then,” he said calmly.

“Blood Festival.”

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the battlefield answered.

The scattered blood across the ruined courtyard trembled.

Drops began sliding across the broken stone as though pulled by invisible threads.

Puddles thickened.

Streams of crimson converged.

The ground itself seemed to bleed.

Zilong’s claws dug into the fractured earth.

“What now…”

The blood did not rise into chains this time.

It gathered.

Masses of crimson flesh swelled upward from the battlefield like tumours forcing their way through skin.

Shapes formed.

Grotesque silhouettes.

Limbs pulled themselves together from strands of hardened blood.

Spines built themselves from bone fragments buried beneath the rubble.

Faces appeared where no faces should exist.

Some had too many eyes.

Others none at all.

The air filled with a wet, tearing sound as the abominations finished forming.

Not corpses.

Not spirits.

Something in between.

“A forgotten—” it reminded Hans of what he saw on his way towards the shadow family of Clandor.

Blood-born creatures stood across the ruined courtyard—dozens of them.

Their bodies pulsed with a mixture of energies:

Life.

Death.

Spirit.

An army.

Anfaleen watched them rise as calmly as a gardener observing seedlings break through soil.

“Your forces are thinning,” he said softly.

“Let us correct that.”

The first of the creatures lunged.

Zilong tore it apart with one swing.

The body exploded into crimson strands—

—and reformed again a few steps away.

The creature rose once more.

Zilong growled.

“I don’t have time for this—”

“But they do.” Anfaleen pointed.

The infected and Eclipse, whose numbers stood superior to the Node’s. Now looked even.

Above them, Hans’ eyes narrowed.

“So that was his goal from the beginning.” He mumbled,

“Soldiers with no end—nostalgic.”

But.

Something felt wrong.

Not the blood magic.

Something inside it.

A faint presence brushed against his senses.

Light.

Thin.

Graceful.

Completely out of place among the grotesque constructs.

Hans focused.

There.

Inside one of the abominations.

A flicker of white light moved like a trapped bird within the creature’s chest.

His eyes widened.

“That… can’t be…”

He swung madly, some landing on the crimson chains dragging him, some missing.

The strikes he had missed earlier resurfaced behind him.

Maximacre tore through the chains,

Finally freeing him.

He lunged, not toward the chain monster but to the blood creature, he cleaved it open and felt it again.

Pure.

Radiant.

A spirit signature he remembered from the Spirit Realm.

His voice dropped.

“A swan spirit…”

Zilong glanced toward him.

“What?”

Hans’ eyes remained fixed on the battlefield.

Only one race had access to the realm where that spirit resided.

Only one bloodline could summon it.

“Elven royalty.”

His gaze slowly lifted toward Anfaleen.

“How did you get that?”

The warlock did not answer immediately.

A faint smile appeared instead.

As if the question amused him.

No, he just pointed to the ground.

One of the infected stumbled while retreating across the broken courtyard.

A red tendril snapped around his neck.

Before anyone could react, the creature dragged him close.

Its chest split open.

Not a mouth.

A cavity lined with writhing crimson veins.

The man screamed once.

The sound cut short as the veins pierced his skin.

His body shriveled in seconds.

Colour drained from his face.

From his arms.

From his eyes.

The corpse dropped to the ground like empty cloth.

The creature swelled.

Its form thickened as fresh blood pulsed through it.

Another infected tried to help.

A second abomination caught him by the shoulder.

Chains of hardened blood pierced straight through his armour.

The man’s scream tore through the battlefield.

His veins bulged.

Then collapsed.

His body fell beside the first—grey, hollow, lifeless.

More of the creatures descended upon the scattered survivors.

They moved with horrifying efficiency.

They did not slash.

They did not crush.

They drained.

Every death made them stronger.

Zilong saw it happening.

“Get away from them!” he roared.

Too late.

One of the infected tried to crawl toward the outer breach of the fortress.

A blood chain wrapped around his ankle and yanked him backward.

The creature above him lowered its head.

Its veins opened like feeding mouths.

The man’s body shrank as if the life itself were being pulled out of him.

Within moments, only a dried husk remained.

Hans felt it like a blade in his chest.

These people had followed him.

Trusted him.

He had told them they would get out.

Another scream rose behind him.

He turned.

A young infected woman struggled against two of the creatures.

Their blood tendrils had already pierced her arms.

She looked directly at him.

Her eyes wide.

Not accusing.

Just afraid.

The veins tightened.

Her body collapsed inward as the blood was torn from it.

Hans’ hand clenched around the hilt of Kindness.

No.

Not like this.

The creatures were not simply killing them.

They were harvesting them.

And every life they drained fed the ritual again.

Anfaleen watched the scene without emotion.

“You wished to protect them,” he said quietly.

His eyes rested on Hans.

“Protect them, then.”

Another infected fell.

Hans’ jaw clenched.

He had promised them they would survive.

His hand moved toward the feather beneath his armour.

If Solunox would not answer judgment—

Then he would answer force.

***