Master Of Myths

"Double the training? But the recruits would die at this rate"

"Then find a way to achieve it with single digit casualties"

"...Yes mother"

Seeing as Nee would comply Mia left with a cold air about her, not at all intending to reconcile with this daughter of hers

I'm fact Nee was aware they were beyond making up and moving on, from the day her treachery was exposed she was deemed an outcast, even Ika and Zero shunned her for the inhuman acts she was pulling behind the scenes

"....Damn it!"

Smashing her heel onto the ground cracked the newly laid tiles, alas all Nee cared about this moment was the resentment she bore

"Anything of the matter my lady"

"No Verity"

The blindfolded wan disappeared as quickly as she appeared

'I can't go against mother or my Lord, the command they can execute over my blood is no simple matter'

She knew this from the beginning yet took risk after risk, look where she ended up now, just a caged bird who was to complete one task after the other in order to keep her life

'If only I could get rid of this accursed blood'

Sadly that was merely a dream

"Verity"

"Yes my lady"

"Enlist the help of humans to support our members"

"What shall we offer them in return?"

"Purified blood that could benefit their physic, I will commission a few more from our lands in the name of training the recruits"

"I will get to it"

Verity made her exist leaving Nee to bite at her nails in thought of ways to remedy her situation

...

"She wants to trade off purified blood in order to have humans support the recruits"

"Nothing wrong with that then, as long as she holds proper intentions, good work Verity"

"My pleasure Miss Zero"

Finishing her report she left to actually do her job this time

"Nee is finally falling into her place, though I do not know for how long"

Allowing the wind to ruffle her white hair Zero looked down the tower they made as their base, everything within this land was cleared off, only vampires dwelled here

"Imy is well taken care of by the new sensible thralls, the base is filled with them too, and the house is guarded by that new fearsome shadow maid, finally I am free to care for myself"

Her growth was barred by those darned wraiths long enough, if not for physical attacks bearing effects on them she would have asked to have someone else care for Imy while she joins the fray

"My Lord is here as well, I should greet him"

Jumping off the tower she morphed into a bat, flying through the sky with the house as her target

Meanwhile, the person she was coming to visit already went on a short trip to visit to a certain tree he hadn't seen in a while

"Oof, you look absolutely ravished"

".....oo..."

"What is that?"

"Fo...oo....d

"Food you say? Here I thought it would be a warm welcome but instead, all you want is for me to spoon feed you"

The once creepy forest could not answer his ridicule, no more was illusion nor the vile reality, only a bunch of half withered trees

"I told you not to over consume energy and food lest you have no power to sustain the illusion grounds, look at you now, ravaged by the wraiths until your life was almost snuffed, all my investments gone with the mist"

YuJu soon his head in mock disappointment

"...he....l...p.."

"I honestly don't want to, but since I went out of my way to go and procure you a high level corpse heart I might as well give it rather than let it go to waste"

Taking out the rotten heart acquired from the eighth floor he could feel the forest somewhat rise in desire, even the dead trees stretched their branches out before cracking and falling to the ground

"Ooooooo"

The voice hoarse screamed out in desire, wanting nothing other than to snatch it away from his grasp and devour it in one go

"Since I'm doing you a great favor, this time the fruit that you bear is all mine"

"Yeessssss!"

Like its half dead state was a lie the tree answered with enthusiasm, but YuJu crouched down and looked at it with very cold eyes forcing the thing to cease its joyful mood

"And when I say all mine I do mean it, unlike every other time when I let you keep more than half the gains to yourself your greedy rotten tree"

"...yes"

It might as well have been a bug with that small voice electing a smile on that cold face of his

"Then eat up, I'm depending on the flourishing fruit of yours to power up a coy snake I made a deal with"

Throwing the rotten heart into the soil he saw roots come out and sink it down, then the forest started to twitch, as if it was a heart itself trying to awaken

"I'll leave you to it then"

With that he returned to the house, finding Zero in wait

"What is the matter Zero"

He asked as he took a seat, the kneeling vampire shook her head in denial of any reason for being here

"Nothing huh?"

"Well, there is one thing I did want to ask my Lord"

"And that would be?"

"Why was I to become an Unholy Knight?'

"Oh, I thought it was pretty obvious"

He sipped tea as he spoke, then put it down with a frown, it tasted so bad now that he started drinking rinea again so he thought he should bring some from the tower next time he makes the trip

"You lack energy based defense but at the same time I cannot let you sacrifice your increasingly strong defense and offense, thus I went with this path"

"Then mind me asking what I am to advance it toward?"

The white haired vampire wanted to know where this class path would take her, as her first class was useless to her and the second path kind of met a dead end, if this once stopped at the second advancement too then she would be lost as to how she could become stronger

"Oh you don't have to worry about that, the path of the Unholy Knight is pretty simple but very effective, you could further descend it into darker divergent classes or raise the status of the knight, which is what we are going to go for, so your next advancement would be Unholy Countess, from there you'll just climb till you achieve ruler authority, how far it takes you depends on your achievements in war"

"I see, many thanks my Lord"

YuJu just shrugged, he was merely providing her with some information, this path was not hard to figure out or anything, it just took someone brave enough to take its risks

"Hmm, this reminds me, how is your mental state doing? Having Unhinged and being an Unholy Knight are both things that would eat at your mental stability"

"I feel nothing of the sort my Lord"

"Indeed you don't, which intrigues me so, mind sharing?"

Zero went quiet for many moments, clearly thinking of her way out of this, would she reveal what she had been hiding or perhaps weasel her way out of this one

"My Lord, it is a simple trick that I have been deploying"

"A trick you say? Well, let's hear it"

"Yes…I just use Blood Thicker Than Water to assimilate calming toxins from Subrina into my blood…."

"...Pft!"

Trying as hard as he could YuJu stifled his laughter, isn't that just basically admitting that she was always high? No wonder her mentality never got affected, she was practically stoned every second

"Well, it's a very uncommon method but a genius one, do keep up the hard work Zero"

"Yes…."

"But I cannot condone it in the long run, if you lose your supply of drugs, I mean, toxins then you would be very vulnerable to having a mental breakdown, both because of addiction and the double edged sword that your powers are"

"I do understand the issue my Lord, I am assured of my ability to cope with the addiction since I can just suppress it with the same skill, but my powers backfiring is something I have yet to manage a solution for"

"We will seek one together, it's not the hardest task after all, at most we could get some warding items that affect one's mental state"

"Thank you my Lord"

YuJu waved her thanks off, he'd yet to do anything so it was early for gratitude

"Now go prepare yourself, new lands will open in two month's time, your one of the participants in the attack"

"Yes!"

Hearing of a battle quickly had the woman rearing to go, finally it would be time to level up again and the power of the Unholy Knight would be put to the test