Chapter 84: I Promise It Won’t Hurt to Open You Up?!

Chapter 84: Chapter 84: I Promise It Won’t Hurt to Open You Up?!

Meanwhile outside Bloodmoon Ruins Dungeon, Kael paced a rut into the wooden floor boards of the makeshift guild.

"We need to go back in."

"We cant and we aren’t going back in blindly," Rika said.

"The fuck you mean! Luc is still down there!"

"I know that, you buffoon!"

Vex was already leaning over one of the few the Guild counters talking g to one of the guild staff manning the counter. "We need a rescue team, and now."

The receptionist checked her records as her expression sank into apology. "I’m sorry, mister Vex but unfortunately every B Rank or higher party currently registered has already entered the dungeon, the last one left about half a day ago."

"When’s the next one?" Rika asked, ignoring Kael.

"The fastest we can expect is by tomorrow morning but it can go up to mid day."

Kael slammed a fist on the counter hearing their crap. "Tomorrow?!"

The receptionist flinched back.

Rika grabbed his arm. "Calm down, you moron, you’re scaring her, it’s not like she controls when they come and go."

"How am I supposed to calm down? He’s alone on Floor Six!"

"Which is populated by B-Rank beasts," Vex said, grim.

"Some Mid B Rank or worse," Zalor added quietly.

Silence settled over all of them.

Kael turned suddenly. "Then the only thing we can do is go ourselves."

"Go where?" Rika said.

"Back inside."

"You heard the Guild the first time we entered, we have no clearance for Floor Six or lower."

"Then we get clearance for the first five again and figure the rest out from there, it’s not like they can stop us from going down if we want to."

"And after that?" Zalor asked.

"We figure it out, hopefully Luc landed somewhere safe." Kael said, his fists clenching.

Rika didn’t answer right away, she knew exactly how insane this was, they were exhausted and barely survived the Bloodmother themselves, and now Kael was proposing to walk voluntarily into monster territory, where the weakest was as strong as the Bloodmother.

Finally after thinking, she exhaled. "...We’re going."

"You’re serious?" Vex asked.

"He’s our party member and friend, we can’t leave him to die if we can do something about it."

Zalor nodded once. "Then I’m in, no way I’m letting my guy die down there."

Kael grinned, some of his panic finally easing. "That’s what I wanted to hear."

Rika pointed at him. "We are not fighting B-Rank monsters head on, we move smart and avoid them if we can, or we don’t move at all."

His grin faltered slightly. "...Right."

Meanwhile back in the endless white void, the woman kept on talking, as she warmed up to the topic, she explained various things gs that Lucie found hard to believe, yet he also knew she had no reason to lie and he knew weren’t that far fetched, compared to the webnovel’s he used to read back on Earth.

"Gods live a very, very long time and eventually and as expected boredom set in, sure they still had to cultivate and get stronger, so no stronger God snaped them out of existence, but even then our growth is slow, very slow, so one day a group of lesser known gods invented something called the Champion Trials out of boredom."

"Which is basically a set of competitions, trials, tournaments, contests where the God’s could bet on whose Champion could accomplish what."

"And those games grew rapidly, from only having lesser known and weaker God’s, until somewhere along the line, it became one of best sources of entertainment the God’s could find, and participate in, using their own mortals, the things bet on their also grew, with the amount of wealth and resources traded in a single game surpassing some Higher God’s whole net worth." She explained.

"But not all God’s use it for entertainment, some use it to gather Rare resources for themselves, some to help their mortals grow, etc."

"So from what you said, I’d basically be a piece in some kind of divine game," Lucien said.

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"Sometimes you’re a warrior."

"Sometimes?"

"A trophy." She made an exaggerated face, hand on hip and he chest out. "Look at my Champion."

She shifted into another pose. "Mine’s stronger." Then a third. "Look mine killed a dragon."

"Look at my one’s beauty, she even more beautiful than some Goddess’s."

She rolled her eyes hard enough that Lucien felt it secondhand. "Old fossils, all of them. No better hobbies in several millennia, besides being horrible at gambling."

"So you don’t participate?"

"Rarely, I don’t care enough and I am rich enough to not need too." She said proudly and grinning.

"Then why did you make the dungeon trial at all?"

She grinned and explained a bit. "I was curious about what they found fun in it, so I thought about participating in one."

She’d embedded the requirements on a whim, wondering if any mortal could actually clear them. Then forgotten about it for a very long time. Until someone finally did.

Then another, then another, then two more.

"And now you," she said, stepping closer, eyes narrowing with something sharper than idle curiosity. "And there’s something very strange about you."

Lucien stiffened.

"You’re not like the vampires I’ve seen before, and trust me, I’ve got a number of Vampires working for me."

"...What does that mean?"

She studied him a long moment, then simply shook her head.

"I don’t know yet, but how about I open you up and find out, I promise it won’t hurt, I’ll even put you back as good as new, maybe even include some new and better parts, what do you say?" She asked with the most beautiful and innocent smile he had ever seen, as sweat started rolling down his back.

’That,’ Lucien thought, ’is somehow worse than an actual answer.’

"Can I refuse?" He asked as all he got in response was a smile.

"So what exactly are you?" she asked suddenly, this time no joking.

"...I’m a vampire?"

"I know that."

"Then why ask?"

"You’re a vampire," she said. "But at the same time you’re not like a vampire I’ve ever seen."

"I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean."

She watched him for a moment as he expression changed, then sighed, waving it off. "Forget it then."

"You don’t know either?"

"You don’t know," she said instead, and something in the way she said it made it clear she’d just confirmed his ignorance genuinely surprised her, and that surprised her even more.

She didn’t press further after that.

"So Lucien," she said finally, hands clasped on her large hips. "Do you want to become my Champion?"

"I still don’t actually know what that involves, since you Saud it depends from God to God."

She froze, then smacked her own forehead. "Ah! Right. Silly me."

She walked him through it properly this time, divine recognition, occasional blessings, tasks assigned, rewards for completing them, appearing on her behalf when called for, access to resources no ordinary mortal could dream of touching.

"And you’re not required to obey everything I say," she added.

"...Really?"

"Really, I’m not interested in a puppet, like some other sad Gods and Goddess’s." She said laughing.

"I want something interesting, something that I can’t find anywhere else, and theirs nothing interesting about a mindless puppet."

"And you won’t throw me into a death game?"

"I wouldn’t throw you into one without telling you." She smiled cheekily.

Lucien stared at her, his expression flat at her nonsense answer. "That is not reassuring."

She giggled, entirely unbothered by his concern for his own continued existence.

As she talked, something she’d said kept circling back in his mind and refused to let go.

’Gods. Goddesses. Divine games. Champion. Mortal.’

He looked at her properly, the silver hair that somehow glowed, the crimson eyes, the presence that had nearly put him on his knees with the barest fraction of a leak, and the beauty that looked to perfect to be true.

As his mind connected the dots, his pulse also picked up.

"Wait a minute, miss."

She tilted her head as he called her miss. "What’s with the miss?"

"You said Gods."

"Yes."

"And Goddesses."

"Mhm I did." She smiled as his thoughts ran.

He stared at her, and everything finally clicked into place at once.

"Who exactly," he asked carefully this time, "are you?"

Her smile widened into something absolutely delighted. She stepped back, spreading both arms, silver hair lifting on a wind that didn’t exist, crimson light blooming across the white void behind her as the white void suddenly started being dyed in crimson.

"Finally!" she said, practically glowing with satisfaction. "I was starting to wonder if my beauty struck you silly and when you’d ask important qurstions!"

BOOM.

Divine pressure rippled outward, gentler this time, but unmistakably deliberate, a performance most likely and not to threaten him.

"I am," she announced with a dramatic pause and her voice echoing through the endless white and red space.

"The one."

Another pause, this time longer as she saw the tension building.

Lucien’s expression had gone entirely deadpan.

"The only."

She grinned, arms still spread, absolutely reveling in the moment as the entire space got dyed crimson.

"GODDESS OF BLOOD!"