Chapter 167 Closing A Tear Is Painful
Closing a Tear is painful!
The next day after I took Mara back into the room to finish the ritual..... It didn't take but a minute before Mara made me finish with nothing but a couple touches here and a couple gentle licks and kisses there and I was putty in her hands. Necro laughed at me as he and Desmaros weaved their hands in some weird patterns that started to pull aetheiric energy from me and from the air and started pooling it into a ball in front of the Tear.
"This is the part where you had better buckle up buttercup! This is gonna hurt." Necro said as he waved the ball forward and as soon as it touched the Tear it exploded all over the Tear before spreading out like a spiderweb and contracting in on itself forcefully. All the while the Tear was slowly getting smaller and smaller. I started to feel a tingling in my chest right under my heart a little bit that slowly started to progress into pain that got more and more severe as the Tear got smaller. I couldn't help but start groaning while clutching at my chest at first but soon I was grasping at the sides of the bed while struggling to breath as something inside my chest was growing rapidly and forcing my insides to move in order to make room.
I felt a wave of energy but also pain at the same time with each pulse of this new organ inside me as it grew. That wave would spread throughout my veins like hellfire, burning away my mana and blood all at the same time before replacing it with something that felt.... pure? Almost like the mana from before was tainted but now any mana that flows through me now is somehow being processed and cleansed like what a tree does to make oxygen. Before I knew what was happening the Pain was subsiding and I was just laying there wide eyed as I was lost in my own body, feeling sensations that I lived with my whole life but on a whole new level.
I raised up slowly looking around myself and the cave and people around me. I felt the bed under me and now I realized just how hard it was and how poorly made it was last minute, I looked at Mara and saw now that she was showing signs of stress and worry beyond what I do, she was showing more and more signs of the pregnancy and even her belly was a bit bigger than usual today. I reached slowly towards her belly and felt her warmth and smiled, then I smiled even bigger as I felt a powerful kick against my hand and a thrum of magical energy come from inside her womb that reacted against mine when I sent a small sliver inside to inspect.
"He is getting bigger by the day and quite feisty I might add." Mara said as she placed her hand over mind with a tired smile. She rubbed my cheek before making me look up at her and turning serious.
"We need to leave now ok? I can feel that inside of you things are chaotic and you need to rest and gain control over yourself..... We don't have long." She looked very worried but I felt fine? Everything seemed a bit hyper focused or even enhanced right now but my body felt like it was ready to race across the world 7 times and then do it backwards!
"I'm fine baby I swear. I feel brand new as a matter of fact! Something inside of me is sending out waves of power through me and I feel stronger than ever!" I stood up and flexed my arms before laughing. Necro came up to me slowly as if walking up to a dangerous creature before talking to me.
"Hey, buddy? How ya feeling? I understand ya might be feeling a bit different right now, but we really need to get you some rest ok? Why don't we head back to the castle right now for some well deserved food and a good bed to lay down on? Plus I'm sure your daughter is really worried about you? What about Vannessa huh Eh hehe Can't let that woman worry about you aswell right? Comeone what ya say and let's get out of here?"
Mara and now Necro were starting to worry me by acting this way towards me, so I did the only reasonable thing and did a quick scan of myself and within seconds I screamed a little at what I found inside! With each new wave I was feeling more powerfull yes.... but at the same time that wave was destroying my blood vessels and organs to reconstruct them! My whole body was literally being destroyed and being made new as we speak!
"Fuck! We gotta go now Vexsus! You shouldn't have looked dammit!" Necro shouted at me but he should have just been blunt with me from the get go that bastard. If he said hey you do this and your body might start to die but brightside is that it'll be reborn at the same time so you won't really feel it.... Well fuck you asshole no way this won't have a negative impact after it's over!
Everyone hustles and starts to make their way back to the entrance of the dungeon, we were able to meet back up with the other groups at the first floor and without much talking they soon followed us. Vannessa posted a group of 20 soldiers to guard the entrance to keep the spawning monsters from spreading to far away from the entrance while me and mine ran towards the FOB they had set up.
By the time we got there my adrenaline had wore off and now I was starting to feel as pain started to rocket through me with each pulse again and this time the pulses were working on breaking apart my bones themselves and each crack or break was audible to the ones around me. I rushed into my sleeping area just in time as one loud crack rang out and I fell on the ground paralyzed as a shooting pain ran up my entire spine. I did a check of my body but found nothing..... or more accurately I couldn't check my body.... Something had happened and now the mana was not listening to my commands any more, If I had to guess I would say that crack was possibly my spinal cord seeing as how I can't even move my head. I can move my eyes, I can still hear, and see, But moving anything was now a no-go.
The only thing I can do now is try and suffer through this and hopefully I can go to sleep or maybe my brain will shut off to avoid the worst of it. I'm assuming it will once the pulses get around to reconstructing the brain and the heart itself....
.... Its been 5 hours now. I've been moved to the bed by the others. After everyone calmed down and stopped crying thankfully Necro noticed that I was staring at him pretty intensely and that I was blinking 3 times in an SOS pattern, I didn't know if he would get it but thankfully he did and he was able to bring everyones attention back to me and we were able to communicate using the cliche yes and no method.
I still feel the waves of pain coursing through me but thankfully the cracks and breaking of my bones ended about and hour ago.... but now.... my thoughts are... getttingg hadrr.....
................
I watched as Vexsus closed his eyes slowly after blinking yes to me asking if he still felt the waves of pain. I looked over at his wives and Hannah but what I had to say was going to be hard to spit out. The body part should be over with, it was time for the important functions of his body to get rebuilt. The amount of energy that this Tear letting through into our world was enough to cause a physical wind to blow... That alone was an indication of how powerful the other side was, I should have warned him but I was too caught up in my experiment to care.
"It's time for his brain and his heart to be rebuilt, this could take anywhere between a couple days to... honestly I don't know how long, it just depends on how much energy the Tear had and how much he absorbed, that determines how long he will stay unconsious. But good news is that since he was awake through the whole process of his body changing, it more than likely means that he will wake up sooner rather than later!"
I went up to Hannah and held her hand as I saw her eyes were starting to tear up, The 3 women also started to sniffle and tear drops started to fall on Vexsus as his chest was slowly rising and falling with each breath, He wasn't going to die. But he was definitely not going to be around for a few days that's for sure.
"Hannah, Honey, Why don't you help out your mom and aunties with your dad while I go and get the army ready to move out? We should get him back home and into a healing bed yea? I will have one of our maids rush ahead and have it set up for us when we get there." I said as I snapped my fingers and soon a shadow was seen zooming out from under me and out towards the distance in the direction of my castle. Hannah smiled at me as she leaned and gave me a kiss before turning and joining Kitsoma and the others.
I left the tent and immediately was stopped by a woman that had been eavesdropping like usual... "Ugh, Vannessa, If you wanted I'm sure Vexsus' other women wouldn't mind if you came and sat with them. I know you are worried about him so just go be with him ok? I will handle the army and the cleanup."
"Bu-Bu-But my lord I have a job to..."
"That's an order! Go be with your future man before I fire you!" I stared at her with a stern expression even though inside I was trying my hardest not to giggle at how beet red her face was getting at me calling Vexsus her future man. She shook her head and saluted me quickly before rushing inside while I laughed and walked towards the command tent to start the process of break down.
"Ok boys whats the hold up?" I ask as I open up the flaps and I see as there are multiple people running around with armfulls papers running back and forth between some who were sitting over open books next a huge table with a map of the nearby area and on that map was a big red dot that was magically getting bigger and bigger. In one corner of that map was a spot that a crude representation and a sign that just said FOB on it and in the center of the red growing area was a dot that read TEAR-3 on it.
"Someone care to explain what I am looking at?" I nearly shouted at this point and finally the tent went silent as they all looked up and saluted after the realization that their Lord was in the tent and addressing them.
"Lord! Uhh-Uh-Uhhh, You see, We have a problem! We sent scouts to the other Tear dungeons to monitor along with a small squad to contain any monsters that might be roaming around those areas but we lost the squads we sent towards this Tear here. We have it classified as only a class 3 on the danger scale but each new report is showing a huge jump in monster growth in terms of strength and area of territory...."
"What was spawning from this dungeon again?" If I wasn't mistaken my territory only had like 5 maybe 6 dungeons and only a couple of them were classified as a 3. So this dungeon was one of two monsters, either it was spitting out Nightmares, and I'm talking huge fucking horse like monsters with fire for manes and can use illusion magic! Or it was goddam Hellhounds..... Just take a Black wolf and light a fire inside of em and you get pretty damn close to what these bad boys look like. They can breath fire and will chase you quite literally to the ends of the earth. But damn do they make great hunting partners from what a few of my ancestors have written down..... Aslong as you feed them ofcourse.
"Sire.... It's not... It's not what we assumed it was. This Tear is supposed to be the Tear that spawns the Hellhounds." 'Fuck' "But..... What the reports are saying do not line up...."
"Ok? And?"
"...I-I...Sir they are reporting that The hellhounds are walking upright sir. And that they are carrying weapons covered in black fire."
That was a big confusing but it sounded like the damn things just evolved and started making weapons! They just advanced from the primal age to the tribal age Hahaha this is some bullshit like some kind of computer game bullshit I used to play back on earth!
"Ok, Have the scouts keep reporting but do not engage, I will go and select a few elites and head over there myself. I want this base to be heavily fortified while I am gone is that understood?"
"YES SIR!"
I speed walked outside and back towards Vexsus' tent to get Vannessa but stopped. She needed to be with them right now and even if she came with me willingly her head wouldn't be in the right place. I was stuck in a hard spot right now as I didn't really have any strong people to rely on that I had in my close circle, most of my people that I bothered to learn their names were busy with Vexsus or were related to Vexsus.... Or were back at my castle defending it in case someone got the bright idea to attack it while I was gone.
Ugh, I really have to be more social.... That was such a pain though and god do I hate people!
Nevertheless I went to find Desmaros and informed him that me and him along with a few others were going to go and try and figure out what's going on with this new Tear, and maybe even capture a few of these new Hellhound species to examine and talk to if possible. He readily agreed and after rounding up a few soldiers that had already come highly recommended by Vannessa earlier for promotions, We set off towards the dungeon.
It took us an hour to walk there but we took it slow because of how rapid I was told this new species expanded their territory. I didn't want to rush and find ourselves in the middle of enemy territory and have to fight our way through a whole horde only to end up barely limping back home.
"Hold up! I just saw something my lord. Right in front of us, it moved so fast thought that I couldn't get a good visual." Came the voice of one of the soldiers who I came to learn was named Thomson. He was a Vampire Elf that was nearing the end of his life and decided to get turned in order to keep on living. Afterwards he was returned to when his species slowed down the aging process and now he looks barely over the age of 25 but in reality this bastard is just over 900 years old.
He holds up a huge tower shield like it weighed less than a paperweight and started to slowly move towards the noise and seconds later a branch rustled before a black figure with red flames zoomed towards Thomson and clashed against his shield causing a loud ringing sound as if metal collided against metal. The figure bounced off and rolled along the ground before bouncing up onto its feet and stood there for us to see it in all its glory.
It stood easily 9 ft. tall, Pitch black fur that undulated and waved around along with the red fire streak down its back like a stripe of fur. It looked physical but at the same time ethereal and like it would just fade away at any moment. But those eyes... Those eyes that glowed a fierce blood red that dripped with pure malice and fury.... And hunger... Oh my god the hunger! I can feel the Hunger as if something is trying to feast on my body just from staring into those eyes! Those eyes were all too real and those were not going to fade away no matter how many sleepless nights I suffered through nor how many spells and potions I used to try and erase this memory I'm witnessing.
"Grrrrrrr... Smells..like meat...Hunger for flesh!" A deep guttural voice that sounds like it was someone was being choked while also being forced through a cheesegrater came from this beasts mouth as a red viscous liquid dripped from its mouth and it curled up to reveal rows of jagged teeth in a horrible imitation of a smile.
"Si-Sir-Sire?" Thomson stuttered to say as he kept his eyes glued to this beast.
"Yes, do it." I said resolutely before the fear started to overtake me. I knew something about this monster was causing this fear to overwhelm us but this was not a normal fear. This was caused by an ability, a skill of some kind... Problem was, was that Hellhounds previously did not possess this skill....
So what, or who gave it to them....