Chapter 148

Chapter 148: Chapter 148

On the outskirts of Ibaeron, Caedos studied the Succubus. She blinked back at him, resigned to her fate.

"Can you return home?" He asked her.

Some life came back to her eyes at the question, moisture filling her gaunt eyes. "You... You would let me go?" She asked, her voice reedy and thin, much like she was.

"Yes." He said in his usual direct manner.

"Thank yo-" She started to say despite the blatant disbelief in her eyes. Almost like this was a tired game of savior and the saved that she was often forced to play.

"Save it for Ruoxi. He’s the reason I bothered to help you." Caedos cut her off, turning away. He created a portal to the Deep Woods, leaving the stunned Demon behind.

They stepped out into Avalan and before discussing with his captains, Caedos needed to free the Hellhounds they had just saved.

After their limiters were broken, Dilya guided them into the castle for treatment, leaving him behind with the three captains.

"Morkoth wants to set up a trade." Caedos said neutrally as he made his way to his study. The maps they acquired naturally didn’t detail the interior of the castle, so he wanted to mark down important spots he had taken note of.

Behind him, all three physically recoiled, disgust and disbelief burning in their eyes.

"We may receive another attack." Caedos said calmly, considering how grim the subject was. "Likely led by Morkoth himself."

The culmination of their first battle, it was one they couldn’t afford to lose. They needed to prepare carefully, there was no telling when Morkoth would choose to attack.

-+-

Dulce sat at his desk, staring down at the letters he had to write. His memories before the desert palace were long lost, so he had to rely on the few people he had reacquainted himself with.

He was simply looking for mages. If human mages had lost the art of summoning, then he would unfortunately have to seek the help of Vampire mages, preferably those who were alive during the age of magic.

When the letters were written, he glanced at the stack of letters he had been ignoring. This pile was incredibly recent, it had been sent in the past two weeks.

Ignoring letters sent to him while sending out new letters requesting favors seemed a bit in bad taste. So he reluctantly reached for the first letter on the pile, the embroidered letter signed with a flowery script.

Lord Rochefort.

The familiar name made him wince, but he opened it regardless, scanning the perfumed letter to find that it was an invitation to dinner. Dulce tossed it to the side without a second thought, the most he could bring himself to do was go through the letters, anything more was beyond him.

The second letter was blank, a simple plain paper in a nondescript white envelope. The written content was a single paragraph, a stranger who didn’t even present their name asking for an encounter, claiming they had knowledge of something Dulce would find incredibly useful.

The third letter was inviting him to another event swamped with Vampires... Dulce tossed that letter aside as well, losing interest in going through the rest.

If he wanted to find out more about his past, that was an easy task... but he didn’t. He stepped out of the study, looking down both hallways before taking a step forward, he was content with living in the present.

Besides, the past was inevitable, it would come for him eventually but for now he could wander through the flower fields, still hopefully searching for his lost animals.

It was well into the afternoon when he left the cottage again, the air was cool and the cloud cover made it a pleasant walk. His initial goal was to search for his farm animals, but several minutes into his peaceful walk, he had lost track of what he was doing, simply enjoying the view.

Until a distant clucking caught his attention, without hesitation he moved in the direction of the sound. He startled the hen by his sudden appearance, but he moved too quickly for it to evade him.

Dulce held the hen up to his face with a wide smile, not stopping to think that it might be a completely different bird. It looked just like his most troublesome hen, whose feathers were a glossy black and who enjoyed squeezing other hens out of their nests.

The bird had been startled at first but it soon recovered and studied Dulce, right before trying to peck out his eyes and struggling to be freed.

Dulce was wary that he would accidentally crush the bird so he let it go, only to be directly attacked by it. He tried to gently bat it away but it was ferocious, pulling out tufts of his hair.

The chaos only happened for a short while, Asael stepping in to help. The rampaging hen was trapped in a cage made out of shadows, the sight of it made Dulce wince.

"Still searching for your farm animals?" Asael asked the obvious, glancing down at the enraged bird who was trying to break free of its cage to get at Dulce.

"It was a pleasant task to keep myself occupied," Dulce admitted, black feathers in his tangled hair. "I didn’t expect to come across any."

Asael looked from the squawking bird to the Vampire, "Do you intend to keep it?" He asked in mild concern.

"I’m certain that is just a wild fowl," Dulce said with reluctance in his eyes. "We should set it free."

Asael glanced down at the ferocious bird, more inclined to have it turned over to the cook. He listened to Dulce and set it free, his shadows going to him.

As soon as the wild fowl was released, it charged at Dulce, vindictive. This time, the Vampire caught it by the neck and effortlessly snapped it. "Do you care for roasted fowl?" He asked mildly, holding the twitching body of the dead bird.