Shadow Slave: Bloodborne

After the cohort had cleared out the two Queens, they decided to rest for a while, Ragna using the pot of Flesh to heal their injuries.

"What do you guys think will appear in the last room ?", asked Layla while just sitting on the ground, having her arms around her legs.

"My guess is that it'll be a King, since we saw every chess piece in this room except for the King. It'll also probably have a higher rank and be way stronger than what we faught in this room.", answered Celeste.

"Yeah, I thought so too. But I'm not sure what its abilities will be since the King is rather weak in the game of Chess.", said Ragna.

"Maybe we should just look for ourselves and walk up the next room.", said Celeste before standing up, the other following shortly.

"Alright."

They started walking up the stairs, feeling a strong pressure press down onto them. This was it, the last thing holding them back from becoming Awakened and going back to the real world. If they lost now, everything would've been for absolutely nothing.

As they stepped into the room, the air instantly changed, becoming oppressive and cold.

The room consisted of black walls with golden ornaments. In the middle stood a throne, a humanoid figure with a black robe and a golden crown on its head, sitting on it. Leaning onto the Throne, was a large two handed longsword.

As the King stood up from its throne, the air thickened, as the ground shook slightly.

Before giving the King any time to pick up its weapon, the four of them instantly started attacking the King. Cera shot out blood turrets while the others dashed forward with their weapons.

But a meter before anything hit the king, it got deflected, like a invisible barrier was around the King. The turrets bounced off while the others got pushed back after swinging their weapons at the king.

'What !? How ? Think ... think. In the game of chess, a King can never approach a other King, like there is a invisible wall inbetween them. Is this the ability this King has ? A invisible barrier around him ? How do you beat something like that ?'

"Why can't we touch this thing ?", yelled out Layla.

"Its probably the King's ability. We need to think of a different way to win. In chess, you win when the King has no place to move to, so we probably need to corner it and attack it from every side or something like that.", answered Ragna.

(Corner it ? Sounds easier than done), said Cera over their mental link, frustration in heir voice.

The King watched them with an eerie silence, something dark shining in its eyes. The King sis not move, deciding to stand in one place. Probably because in chess, the King could only move and attack a field that was one step away from it, meaning that it had no speed nor any agility.

But since long ranged attacks just bounced off, they couldn't attack it from afar.

Their next plan was to maybe use Celestes gravity powers to maybe push it against the wall, or crush it with the help of its invisible barrier, but both didn't work.

But there were also other things they could try. The next thing they wanted to try, was using Laylas Aspect ability.

Long story short, it pretty much had zero effect, but there was one thing it did. The ink didn't bounce off the invisible barrier, but just landed and covered it fully, clouding the King fully in darkness. Now, the King couldn't see them, allowing them to move closer.

The King was actually rather weak, not being able to move and only being able to attack them if they are close. The only thing that made it "strong" was its barrier.

And this gave Ragna an Idea. Since the King was theoretically weak, wouldn't that mean that the Nobility attribute of Queen would have an effect on the King ?

And so, Ragna decided to just try it out, as a pool of blood appeared next to him and a tall woman, clad in a red dress and wearing a crown stepped out. She held her thin, red sword tightly and emitted an aura of elegance.

The moment the Queen was fully manifested, the aura of the King had become less menacing. The cohort couldn't see them King, because of the ink around its barrier, but it was probably shaking right now.

Ragna smirked, seeing that Queen was overpowering the King with her attribute. The king, and the barrier, had now gotten weaker, so it was now their time to attack.

"I think, if we give it our all, we could maybe break through and push it against the wall before burying it in our attacks."

Celeste, without waiting, tried out to push the King once more, and this time, it actually had an effect, even if only slightly.

Seeing Celestes gravitational powers nudge the king back slightly, reignited hope in the small cohort.

Celeste gritted her teeth, as she tried pushing harder.

"It..its working. Push it !"

Now, their objective was to completly drown the king in attacks, and so they did. Layla, Queen and Ragna all went into a direct fight, attacking the Kings barrier with their weapons, cracking it ever so slightly, while Cera buffed Ragna and attacked from afar.

And so, they slowly pushed it back, till the King was in the corner, being attacked from literally everywhere. It was crushed by gravity, shaken by blood turrets and close to being attacked by swords, till suddenly, the barrier broke down.

As the barrier broke, the ink fell down too, but Layla instantly shot out more and used her Aspect to make it go blind once more.

This was it, they could now kill the helpless King.

"Sooo ... who will get the kill ? Since it can't fight back, we can decide.", asked Ragna. But before his teammates could answer, a huge amount of water shot forward, pushing the King even further back and crushing and drowning it against the wall.

"It's mine !", said an arrogant and annoying voice.

As they turned around, the saw Caspian a few meters behind them, already running to the next pair of stairs.

He started laughing as he said, that he had even gotten a Memory from the King.

The cohort stood frozen for a second before rage overtook them, especially Ragna.

'That fucking bastard. Literally just appears from nowhere and then steals the kill.'

The others already started running behind Caspian, before Ragna followed too.

'At least we can leave the Dream Realm now.'

As they ran up the stairs, and appeared on the next Floor, they saw what looked like to be a gateway on the other side of the room.

But there was something wrong with it ... there was no light, no indication that it was working.

Before anyone could process anything, the voice of the spell spoke into their minds.

[To activate the Gateway, one soul must be left behind as a sacrifice to make sure the others may pass. The elected person need to spill blood and feel death.]

There was one more condition they needed to do, one more Room to clear. Room 201 wanted them to kill someone in here, and all eyes instantly went onto Caspian, before hell broke loose.

Caspian summoned two Echoes, but Ragnas own echoes instantly rushed towards them, leaving Caspian alone against Layla, Celeste and Ragna.

Celeste instantly slowed down his movements by weighting him down with her gravitational force, while the other went to fight Caspian directly.

But there were faced by a huge stream of water, pushing them back.

Caspians Aspect was really strong and versatile, but they had a way to crush it. When Caspian first met the cohort, they had exchanged their abilities, but there was one thing they didn't tell him, Layla didn't tell him.

She had only told him that her Aspect allowed her to weaken or make the enemy go blind, not that she could also disable the Aspect of other humans.

They just somehow needed to get closer, so they split up. Layla ran to the right, and Ragna to the left, making Caspian use less water, since he needed to split his supply to both sides.

Suddenly, Ragna changes directions and dashed right towards Caspian, dodging his beams and pushing himself harder, appearing in front of Caspian in just a second, already swinging his sword, which would've been lethal.

Caspian instantly decided to ignore Layla and us all of his strength to push Ragna away and not get hit. But that fraction gave Layla the time to splash her ink onto Caspian, before disabling his Aspect. The water instantly evaporated and disappeared into nothingness.

"What ?! Why can't I use my Aspect ?"

Before he could process anything, Celeste had already appeared over him, smashing her staff down and crushing his skull with gravity.

His body instantly went still as his head busted. His limp body fell onto the ground and grew cold.

And slowly, the Gateway started to shine.

***

Darkness ... That was where Caspian was right now.

[Heart of Ignis]:

Type: Charm

Rank: Ascended

Tier: 2

Attributes: [Flames of Life], [Fiery Rebirth],

[Flames of Life]: "A warm heat burns deep inside your Heart, slowly healing you overtime."

[Fiery Rebirth]: "Only once can you come back to Life but a part of your humanity will burn away when the time comes."

This was the charm Caspian had gotten in the underground cave, after killing Ignis and completing the Trial.

He grinned as he read the Fiery Rebirth attribute. And then, he suddenly started feeling warm, hot and then he burned, before comming back to life with a gasp.

He had a fiery shield around him, a shield that would be indestructible for a while.

As he woke up again, all eyes instantly fell onto him, before he ran off towards the gateway.

"What is he alive ? Get him, quick !", yelled out Ragna, already running behind Caspian. But it was no use, as Caspian ran into the light and disappeared.

"FUCK ! This is bad, really bad. He'll definitely want to get revenge. And he's from one of the great clans. What do we do ?"

As Ragna struggled to come up with a plan, the other waited, till he sighed.

I'll think of it later. We should probably wait a bit before going into the gateway. We wouldn't want him to attack us the second we get out of our capsules.

——-Author's Notes——-

Words: 1766

So this is pretty much it with the Dream Realm arc.

They'll get their appraisal next chapter and become Awakened.

Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter.

Peace