Chapter 211: Risk
Wait... what?
Vacuse froze and his eyes slowly hardened like ice. Any and all warmth disappeared as if it had never existed. "What do you mean?"
Lady Slave took an involuntary step back, her face wide with fear. Suddenly the person that stood in front of her didn’t just pose a minimal threat. He radiated bloodlust that made her spin, turn cold. "Wait! What I meant is that to return, I need to use my power to get us out! My unsealed power!"
Vacuse stared at her in silence for a while and then his eyes narrowed. "I warn you: if you trick me, I will give you the worst death I’ve ever bestowed upon anyone."
And it wasn’t a warning, he was simply explaining what he would do if she should do anything out of line. The whip he was holding hummed as more draconic energy poured into it, making it flicker with purple light.
Lady Slave nodded hurriedly.
Vacuse didn’t trust her but knew there must be some truth to what she said as well as a trap. The problem was that he didn’t know what she could do since she did not have her power.
And yet, he hesitated.
He was someone who loved his life above anything else. He couldn’t just gamble it away because of what she said.
Vacuse took a deep breath and his nose flared. His eyes fluttered as he settled himself into concentration.
Suddenly the purple, destructive, draconic energy on his whip stopped flickering. It appeared calm, swaying gently.
"What are you doing?" Lady Slave asked, her heart beating fast as she suddenly felt an ominous sensation.
She was right to be scared.
Vacuse was sweating, his teeth clenched tight in concentration.
Draconic energy isn’t a power that can be tamed like his void energy, and yet that was what Vacuse was doing, his will clamping over the energy that wanted to rage and destroy.
Although he couldn’t control it like his void energy, the crude control he had over it was enough for what he wanted to do.
The energy surged forward through the whip and coiled around the tip and then into Lady Slave, piercing through her flesh like a needle.
She flinched, opened her mouth to say something, but instead a painful scream tore from her; her hand went up to grip the whip. "What are you doing? What are you doing! Stop! Stop!"
Unlike when Vacuse used his void energy, his draconic energy was too rough to be used in a subtle way. He ignored her wailing and said to her, "With a thought I can make you explode. I am going to unseal myself now. If you have prepared any tricks, you’ll get your neck blown away."
She glared at him with venom.
But Vacuse was already satisfied with what he had done.
With the coin still on his left palm, he used one of his nails to cut his own flesh. A drop of blood squeezed out, hovering over the coin.
And in that moment before the blood dripped on the coin, something happened.
An image appeared in Lady Slave’s eyes; it was a complicated formation of angles and shapes of some powerful origin. The complicated formation then disappeared and appeared in Vacuse’s drop of blood.
The blood sank on the surface of the coin and Vacuse, oblivious to what had happened, raised the coin to the back of his head and pressed it against the seal.
And...
...it was that easy. One moment he was sealed and the next he was unsealed. An overwhelming amount of power bellowed out, rushing through Vacuse like a tide, making him sway a little.
"...Brat! Your blood!..."
Vacuse realized a couple of things. "You. The drop of blood on the coin isn’t necessary, is it?"
Lady Slave didn’t answer immediately.
Her face was closed, her right hand behind her head, where a coin was held tight.
She had another of the unsealing magical instruments. "Ah! I’ve missed this feeling! When last have I felt this much power in me? I’m back!"
When she opened her eyes, they were bloodshot with blood magic, lighting her eyes up in vivid red. She smiled at him. "Of course it’s not needed."
Vacuse felt the draconic energy he put in her neck disappear, and he acted a moment later.
He jerked the whip but she was waiting and turned with it, safely uncoiling it from her neck.
Vacuse cracked the whip back and as he raised it, the whip was covered in void energy that turned it black.
The air whined as he brought it down, snapping with small static booms.
But she was ready.
The air lit up with red light that covered her like a dome, effectively blocking the whip attack but not without effects as cracks ran around the dome.
"Red eyes slave, why are you angry? You were planning on killing me before, right? After you unseal yourself, you are going to kill me!"
Vacuse didn’t deny it as he was planning to kill her together with all the workers outside. "And you’ve been planning to kill me since you saw me."
She giggled. Fear and terror far from her face now that she had gotten her own power unsealed. "But only because your blood is so enticing! Who would have thought you are waiting for me like a serpent pretending to be dead?"
Vacuse’s eyes darkened. Why do people like calling him serpent? But most importantly, what did she do with that drop of blood. "...Rith, it’s good to have you back, but we’ll talk later. What did this bastard do to my blood!..."
"...some kind of binding but I’m not sure. This type of power isn’t something I’m good at. Unless it’s my true self..."
Vacuse gritted his teeth. "What did you do!"
"Oh, it’s just a life-saving technique that my mentor gave me. But honestly, to think someone like you would force me to use it! No matter."
Vacuse didn’t like the sound of that and no matter how he used his senses to check, he couldn’t find what was wrong.
Then he would do what he always did in situations like this. "I will beat it out of you."