The Fallen Vampire

Taira awoke to the feeling of a familiar tongue in his mouth and a warm feeling spreading throughout his throat and chest.

Opening his eyes, he saw Keran kissing him from above and wearing a small stream of tears on her face.

Only when she pulled away did he see a smile form and she finally wiped away her lingering tears. "I'm glad you're both awake now. You had me really worried."

Out of the corner of his eye, Taira noticed movement and Enyo crawled beside him to take his hand in hers.

At that moment, the last few moments of consciousness he experienced started to play back within his mind, and an annoying feeling started to gnaw within his heart.

"Heh..."

He'd been defeated.

Spectacularly.

Embarrassingly.

There hadn't been a single thing that he was able to do that could catch his opponent off guard or even inflict a modicum of harm to him.

It was so embarrassingly funny that he could almost laugh.

And then... he did.

It started as a small chuckle that was barely audible.

But as a loud explosion ripped out from further along the bridge, it became a loud and unsettling sonnet of hilarity that only Enyo and Keran were close enough to hear.

They were so alarmed by their husband's sudden and uncharacteristic laughter that they almost did not bother to turn around and look at the explosion that had ensued behind them.

They probably never would have checked had Taira not stopped laughing and started staring past them with an interested look in his eye.

"Oh...? That's something new..."

Following his gaze, the girls saw a scene that would be burned into their eyes forever.

The werewolf queen Ayame was engulfed in such a refined and clandestine storm of power that no one would have even noticed it had they not been looking directly at it.

But with a single gaze, one could immediately understand it's profundity.

A funnel of dark energy raged above Ayame's head, and dispersed the raging snow storm entirely.

The funnel started to solidify and shape itself before their very eyes; becoming an ethereal wolf that stood up on it's hind legs and roared powerfully.

Velreth gritted his teeth in front of the beast and started pouring all of his focus into defense.

With his hand missing, he could not counter with any of his own primeval techniques to overwhelm her.

Lucky for him, his opponent's dharma was incomplete and operating at only 10 to 15% of it's true potential, likely because his opponent's understanding only went that deep.

The situation was still salvageable.

He just had to outlast her long enough for her energy to run out.

"True Arcane Ice : Hands of The Frost God!"

Out of thin air, two muscular arms made entirely from frozen water appeared and held open their palms in a defensive manner.

Smiling, Ayame relished in the challenge and sniffed the air with bloodhound like precision and sadistic glee.

"How long has it been since I got to experience these things..? The smell of worry that eventually leads to fear, and the last desperate effort of a prey that has already had his fate sealed. Oh how I will relish in the return of these glories like none other..!"

The dharma above Ayame's head let out a roar of agreement as it became larger than before, and developed more anthropoid features like fists and broad shoulders.

Now, Velreth began to show some noticeable signs of worry.

"S-Shit..!"

"Tear him apart!"

The blood red dharma let out another roar before it made a slashing gesture with his claws in the shape of an X.

Slashes of pure malevolent qi left the claws of the overgrown werewolf and flew towards the upheld hands of Velreth.

As a last ditch effort, the great god of ice erected several more barriers in a row as a means to stop the attack, but the result was as he feared nonetheless.

BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

Like a hot knife through butter, the attack cut through every erected obstacle with practically no resistance.

Even Velreth was having a hard time processing what happened; all that he knew was that one second he could feel his legs and the next he couldn't.

The wet and distinctive sound of meat falling to the floor echoed, and Ayame dispelled her blood red dharma before going to investigate.

Her bare feet carried her along the ruined cobblestone path until she stood over the bisected body of her opponent.

But as soon as she looked into his eyes, she knew that there was a problem.

His eyes were already glossy and devoid of life, as if he'd been long dead for around an hour.

'He vacated the body...' Ayame realized.

Normally, a thing like this would have cheapened the victory of the werewolf queen and left her feeling a little sour.

But there were a few reasons why it didn't.

For one, her opponent was a god from the upper realm. Even without all of his powers, just the fact that she was able to push him to this point was already a monumental achievement.

And two, this was her first time seeing combat of any kind in over 200 years, and she was more than a little rusty.

Though it wasn't a flawless victory, it was one that she was more than happy to take.

Grabbing the dead body head first, she held it up high in the air for all to see and let out a victorious howl that traveled to the ears of everyone present.

"AWWWWOOOOOOOO!!!"

Unsurprisingly, her soldiers were the first to react.

Helmets were thrown into the air without a single care as cheers like thunder shook the cavern walls.

"The Queen is back!"

"She's killed one of those damned heroes!!"

"Huzzah!!"

"Her battle gave me a glorious erection!"

Ayame smiled and placed her hand on the top of Duncan's lifeless head and pulled hard until a satisfying ripping sound was heard.

The head came free into her grasp and she tossed the rest of his body over her shoulder before moving towards her daughter and her family.

Dropping onto one knee, she held out the head to her daughter like it was a prized trophy and gave her a motherly smile that Keran hadn't seen in a very long time.

"My daughter has been avenged. No one will trouble you any longer."

"Ah... Thank you mother... You were very cool." Keran added.

"Hmph! Naturally!" Ayame regained a stone faced expression as she turned her nose up in an effort to remain dignified.

...However, the soft wagging of her tail had already given her away.

Keran shook her head as she smiled and took the head from her mother before placing it on the ground next to her.

In her lap, she supported the heads of Taira and Enyo as they slept side by side.

"They also found you impressive... their eyes were glued to that special technique you used for a while before they passed out."

"Ah..." Silently, Ayame kicked herself.

Of course a primeval technique would be too much for people who were practically on death's door to witness.

It was a miracle they were only sleeping quietly and not being tormented by terrible nightmares.

"You have strong family members. It is very impressive that they were able to remain alive at all after being frozen solid for multiple minutes."

"Yes, but... I do wonder about what effect this will have on them psychologically." Keran said worriedly.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get that unnatural laughter of her husband's out of her head.

"I understand that..." Ayame said quietly. "Defeat has a way of changing people. Some more drastically than others..."

Even without asking, Keran knew full well that her mother was talking about herself.

She wanted to say something to her about the past, but at that moment she saw three familiar faces running towards her onto the bridge.

Lucia and Vermeil were both crying as they called out to her in relief.

Aveena was unconscious just like Taira and Enyo; and her large muscular body was resting across the back of Lucia.

"I take it that those are your family too?" Ayame asked.

"Yes...they are."

"I see... what will you all do now? Room can be made for you at the castle... even the human."

Keran chuckled a bit as she came to an answer without even having to think about it.

"I'm sure we'll be there to visit sometime but... I think that we will stay here."

"Here??"

"Yes." Keran said gently.

With her last breath, Abbess Setsuka had transferred ownership of this place to Keran; along with knowledge of the cave's secrets and treasures hidden inside.

This place was completely at her beck and call, and would respond to her wishes to a certain extent.

And since this place was hers, that also meant that it was her family's.

And she could think of no better place for all of them to live together as they thought about next steps for the future.

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