Sacrifice Mage

Chapter 252 (B3: 79): Captured

Vandre was forced to reconsider how he was handling himself here. Of all the adventurous things he had prepared for, being dragged through the Nether Vein by hostile entities wasn’t one of them. He had been ready for vicious monsters, for more humanoid enemies too, if necessary. He had trained to fight both alone and in teams where needed. He had even been in action himself, fighting against everything dungeons could throw at him and even the Blight Swarm invasion.

And yet, he’d been captured.

Stupid. Stupid. .

“Stupid,” said his captor, like he had heard Vandre’s chaotic thoughts. He made sure to speak in New Zair so that Vandre would understand. “Pits-birthed .”

The kick afterwards hit him hard in the chest. He almost fell, stumbling for a few steps before straightening. Vandre bit down on his lip, which was bad because his teeth were now fangs, so they drew blood way too easily. But it was the best remedy to his disastrous idea of fighting back.

Because that had gone horribly last time. He still hadn’t regenerated his right forearm.

No fighting back. No point in screaming, crying, or reacting in any way at all. They saw him as a toy. Something to entertain them. The more he responded, the more it emboldened them to attack him further. To torture him even more, just to fill up their sadistic needs because they weren’t allowed to touch the others.

The good part of Vandre should have thought of it positively. Their other prisoners were literally a woman and her offspring. They were already scared beyond possibility, the children so traumatized that the only way they’d been able to shut up the boy and the girl was by knocking them out cold.

That had led to the woman wailing and shrieking loud enough to attract every single living thing in the Nether Vein, so the Claderovians hadn’t spared her the same treatment as the children.

Vandre thankful it hadn’t been anything worse. He’d heard of horror stories, from gross dungeon “delves” before the Adventurer’s Guild was a thing, and more recently during the Krayle Dungeon wars, of far worse things happening. Usually to women. It was just hard to credit them for being savages when they were routinely taking advantage of the fact that he wasn’t dying so easily.

One of the others, a tall Rakshasa called Laverre, as Vandre had learned, yelled at his companion. Ousine, the human kicking Vandre, looked over balefully. The two exchanged some heated comments before the human spat at Vandre and sauntered away.

He didn’t know what had been said. Vandre couldn’t even write or read New Zair, much less speak a whole other language like Cladian.

But it disquieted him all the same. He should have been thankful for less torture, but really, it just made him more wary. were they stopping? Was it not worth it anymore? Were they reaching their destination soon?

That fear kept haunting him too long. If he reached Claderov, then it was all over for him.

Vandre’s shudder of barely holding himself back was thankfully lost in the jerky motions of the train itself.

Once, Vandre had thrown himself out of the carriage to get away. He had landed hard enough to break his shoulder bones, which had pulled some agonized grunts out of him. But he hadn’t managed to go far. The Claderovians had stopped the train and caught him within half an hour, no matter how fast he had run.

That was the other thing that had stopped him from doing anything. He was outclassed in every way by these monsters in people’s guises.

Well, except for one. Vandre was positive there was at least one way he had one-upped them. At least one way he was far superior to anything they could ever muster.

His immortality.

That was his ace in the hole. That was what would save him in the end. Because, no matter what happened, Vandre could regenerate and heal himself. It was something he had trained rigorously with his fellow cultist Scarthralls and with Cultist Ross as well.

He could endure more than his torturers could even dream up in their worst nightmares.

Well, save for sunlight. None of them had shown any capability of manifesting an Aspect of Light or anything similar, though, so Vandre believed that he was in the clear.

Now, he just needed to wait for his moment.

For his opportunity.

He was afraid they were getting too close to Claderov. They had been travelling for hours, and it had taken too long for Vandre to recover after the constant sessions of torture for him to even begin formulating a plan.

It wasn’t the camps. They were rushing through too fast and they weren’t manned very well. Vandre might have tried throwing himself out again, hoping desperately one of the camp’s minders would present a strong-enough defence against the Claderovians.

But who was he kidding? These monsters were strong enough to give even Cultist Ross pause.

If he wasted another chance, they’d lock him down for good. They had already shackled him to the floor of the rattling carriage. It had taken way too many hours to weaken the links with Aetherblood without giving any hint that he had worn away the binds keeping him down. But soon.

Maybe not as soon as he had hoped. Maybe it was taking too long. .

Vandre drove himself crazy guessing and second guessing. He had to bear through an in-between bout of torture where his head was set aflame and he got a horrible razor haircut. It had drawn out screams he was desperate to forget, mostly because his plan had come close to accidentally breaking his chains at an inopportune moment and giving it all away.

By the time it was done, blood splattered the little section of the carriage he was stuck in, the metal sizzling where he had lashed out instinctively with Aetherblood. Every bit of his hair he saw, already sadly sparse, felt like another stab to his chest.

“You look almost beautiful now,” the insane man murmured when he was finally backing off.

Vandre wanted to curse him, but he kept his mouth forcefully shut. It was on the lower end of things he had suffered over the last day or so, all things considered.

His arm was missing a third of it, after all.

And the way the woman and her children were cowering and trying their hardest to not see, to not hear, was going to break his heart over and over and over again.

But then, it was time.

His chance had finally appeared.

The manic grin on Vandre’s face wouldn’t leave. He couldn’t help it if he gave anything away. He could finally free himself of this torture trap.

When he threw himself out, he didn’t heed the shouts and commands. Vandre just ran. He had made sure to land properly this time, to not stupidly injure himself like he had believed he would. Something to take pride in. This was another bit of training, wasn’t it? He’d survive and he’d tell the others all about it.

“Stop!” one of the Claderovians yelled from behind. They had been so fast at stopping their train, but Vandre kept going as fast as his Silver-ranked legs could carry him.

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Aspects began exploding behind his back but he was throwing Aetherblood behind him without even looking. Bless Cultist Ross for telling him about the glories of Manifestation. Vandre had gotten it as fast as he had been able to do so.

It wasn’t enough, which wasn’t surprising. Strange green liquid swarmed his legs, thorny vines rushing out in an attempt to take them over. Aetherblood counteracted them, and Vandre was trying to forge onwards even as the flesh and skin and blood of his legs were torn to shreds. Almost there. He wasn’t stopping now. Freedom was close enough to.

When a weird metallic sound resounded behind him, Vandre knew this was now or never. So, he channelled his newest Aspect.

His Aspect of Minion created the tiny Bloodlings, as he had begun calling them. The crimson critters were small enough to fit in his palm. But they were fast, hardy, and .

It was horrendously satisfying to hear some of the yelps and screams. If only Vandre had the time to look back and enjoy the tiniest taste he had given his captors of their own medicine. He was so tempted to twist his neck around to see it, even as he kept running. It wasn’t going to kill him after all. Vandre had broken his neck and survived. The pain was just way too annoying.

But then, Vandre was through. He was .

In the embrace of the Nether Vein.

“Come at me now!” Vandre screamed. This time, he did turn around. Everything had gone terribly dark, but he wasn’t about to look away. He could still see enough. His pursuers were hesitating. They had already dealt with the bloodlings, but it didn’t matter. They had served their purpose. “What are you waiting for, you Pits-breathers? ”

Vandre was screaming at them and waving his arms at them. Jumping up and daring them to come claim him like they thought they could. He was no slave of theirs. He was no captive. Vandre was—

The Netherthreads latched onto him then.

It wasn’t surprising. The dark strands attacked him with ravenous ferocity, determined to tear him apart, to soak him with their darkness just like they had suffused everything within their grasp so far. Honestly, Vandre had been wondering whether it was the Nether Vein itself that would get him first, or one of the myriad nightmarish monsters within its domain.

Looked like it was the former.

Vandre tried to grin even as he screamed. This pain, that of ribs getting pulled out of his back, was what he wanted. This pain, that of his skull being ripped apart, tiny piece by tiny piece, was what he had thrown himself into. Because he could forge onwards through this. Because his Path of Bloodforged Strength was already healing him.

But… it might not have been fast enough. Vandre had just turned around, hoping to start his journey back to Zairgon, his euphoria marred by the guilt of leaving behind that woman and her children.

Then he faltered.

And then he fell.

The Nether Vein was eating him alive. He no longer even had a mouth to scream. Well, then. Vandre knew his mind was breaking because beyond the pain, what he felt was that his experiences since the moment he had been captured were allowing him to bear through this living Pits better than he really should have been able to.

Even his vampiric immortality had its limits, after all.

But this was fine, right? If he was going to die, then he’d be dying on his own terms. He had accomplished his final mission—escaping those bastards from Claderov. This grave was his to claim, dug by his own two hands. He could rest easy, knowing that.

A pang jolted through him, another sensation shooting through the sheer agony inflicted on him by the Nether Vein. He was going to miss his friends. Lujean, Atholaine, and the rest. He was going to miss Cultist Ross’s training and wisdom. He wouldn’t get to see Little Sreketh again, or Aqrea, or Gavant or Florian, or anyone else.

The pang really hurt because would they ever know how he’d died? Would they understand that he had won in the end?

Maybe they would. Maybe he could believe that Cultist Ross had ways of finding the truth. He had done so before after all, with that strange Affix of his—Soul Seek or Soul Sight or something. Though, wasn’t it only temporary?

No. No, Cultist Ross would know. One way or another. Vandre could die, knowing he had made those who loved him proud.

He closed his eyes, hoping to find some semblance of peace through the pain.

What he found, instead, was light.

Vandre gasped his eyes open to be attacked by burning radiance. It wasn’t just him screaming anymore. The Nether Vein itself seemed to be shrieking, all the Netherthreads attacking him burning away under the scouring illumination. . No way. It couldn’t be… but

This burning light was . How was it emanating from the metallic walls and floor of the Nether Vein? How was it burning patterns on the Nether Vein itself?

Something strange was happening. The metal was shifting, rearranging and reshaping itself without melting, and through it all, Vandre . The light wasn’t just razing his body, it was stabbing into his heart, boiling every bit of his blood, such that even covering himself with his crimson power did almost nothing to stem it.

Soon enough, his eyes had been vaporized out of his skull. He’d have struggled if the Nether Vein had left anything to struggle .

Then the light reached the very core of Vandre—his soul.

It seemed to him somehow. That, more than anything, convinced him that this had at least to do with Cultist Ross. Something integral.

There was something going on. Something incredibly strange, incredibly potent, incredibly in a way. Maybe the metal had melted because he felt runnels of indescribably hot liquid touch him from all sides. It couldn’t have been his blood since they were already within him.

Vandre couldn’t believe he was still conscious enough to what was going on. His body yearned desperately to scream, to shriek, to give voice, to make his agony tangible.

Yet, all he could do was lie there, broken and destroyed but still alive, as his physiology was overwritten by… this weirdness.

He didn’t know how long he was lying there. Maybe hours, maybe days. It had taken some time to realize that he wasn’t being torn apart any longer. He wasn’t being attacked by any Netherthreads or burned away by the incinerating light that the Nether Vein itself had adopted anymore. Everything that had been destroyed had reformed across the time he had been stuck in his little crater.

An indeterminate time later, Vandre realized he was capable of moving again. It had taken him so long to just accept that he was capable of motion again. Well, he wasn’t going to blame his brain for taking its time after what he had gone through.

He couldn’t even start to understand the differences in his body. Every movement was smoother than ever before, like he was less using his muscles and more willing his body into a new position. He didn’t feel like he was breathing air at all. If anything, his lungs were like his heart now, pumping a substance that certainly wasn’t blood, but wasn’t exactly air either.

It was more like the glowing, blistering energy that ran through the Nether Vein itself.

The Nether Vein was almost unrecognizable too. Its metal walls, floors, and ceiling were still present, but that was about it. The Netherthreads had been replaced with glowing motes of light, and again, golden energy formed myriad patterns running through the metal. Half of said metal was molten in far too many places.

He wouldn’t say any of it was exactly comforting compared to the previous iteration. It vastly different, though. More… lifegiving.

Eventually, Vandre saw that Zairgon had finally run through the Nether Vein to meet Claderov.

Vandre saw it from a distance, at first. A far off gathering of lights and power, a sense of several powerful auras occluding the same space and drawing him ever closer. When he reached them, it was a minor disappointment to not find Cultist Ross among the powers gathered there.

But then, he could somehow Cultist Ross in everything surrounding him.

Vandre found it odd how he became the total centre of attention of everyone present. Both Zairgon and Claderov stared at him. At least he was accosted directly by people from Zairgon, some of whom he recognized in a distant way. The Councillors, for instance, some adventurers from the Adventurer’s Guild, and so on.

They were all looking at him oddly too. It was nothing like the looks he had received as a Scarthrall trying to get through life on Zairgon. No disdain, no wariness, no hints of derision.

Instead, they were looking at him like… like they looked at Cultist Ross, for whatever reason.

There were a lot of things being said. He heard questions and comments, but they flowed over him like wind. The meeting was clearly tense, and Vandre’s arrival had thrown fuel into the inferno about to erupt into being. That it wasn’t already a terrific battle had made him frown.

But Vandre found himself wading through the sea of gathered bodies and powers until he nearly reached his captors. Nearly. Someone powerful was stopping him from going farther.

“Those are the bastards,” he shouted. “Those are the cowardly —”

He couldn’t even get his words out thanks to his rage.

A powerful voice, the strongest one in the area, cut through the din. Vandre didn’t understand what the standoff was about, why the trio of shit-eaters were still standing seemingly free. But he was almost bound to listen anyway.

“You have suffered greatly,” the Se-Targa Councillor said. She was talking to him personally, something that should have been a great honour. If only Vandre hadn’t simply been itching to attack the bastards. “So has much of Zairgon. And for that, we will exact a hefty price from Claderov.”

“When are we attacking?”

“We aren’t.”

Vandre turned swiftly. “”

A tall, bulky Rakshasa sighed. Vandre recognized the man through his burning anger. Ugnash. He was one holding Vandre back. “We can’t. Claderov is denying they even a hand in things.”