SSS Awakening: Rebirth of the Strongest Vampire God-Chapter 714: Are you an idiot?
The hall fell deathly silent. The emperor stared at the crown prince as if he were looking at a stranger wearing his son’s face. The disappointment in his eyes ran deeper than anger, deeper even than betrayal.
"...So that’s it," the emperor said quietly. "That is what you truly think."
The crown prince spread his hands slightly. "It’s the truth. The hidden orders were power. Real power. Not this fragile balance you clung to."
"If you had cooperated, if you had used them instead of fearing them, the Great Western Desert would already stand above the other empires. We could have owned the entire light faction. We could have been the rulers of this whole continent and not just this measly, dry, useless land."
"And what would it stand on?" the emperor asked. "Bones?"
The prince smiled thinly. "Every empire is built on bones. You just refused to admit it."
"I don’t see any point in continuing this conversation." Damon finally spoke up.
The crown prince’s gaze shifted to him, irritation flashing across his face. "This is a family matter."
Damon tilted his head. "You poisoned your sister. That makes it my matter."
"Shut up, bloodsucker. You will kneel in front of me. You will talk when I allow you to talk. And..." A cold glint appeared in the crown prince’s eyes. "Don’t use your uncouth tongue to utter my sister’s name ever again."
Damon blinked, staring at the crown prince. He then laughed. "Are you an idiot? You really don’t understand what kind of room you walked into?" 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺
The crown prince sneered. "Surrounded by hundreds of peak C-rank experts? I understand it perfectly."
Damon took a single step forward. The pressure exploded. He then glanced sideways at Alzara and the Emperor. Both of them looked pained, but they gave him a nod nevertheless. Things had already come to this. There was simply no other outcome possible.
"I didn’t ask for permission to speak," Damon said calmly. "And I certainly didn’t ask for permission to stand." He raised his hand slightly.
Alzara sucked in a sharp breath. She had seen Damon fight before. Her heart raced as this time he would be fighting against her own brother.
The Emperor standing beside her laughed bitterly. "My son... You are not wrong. In the end, I did end up making a deal with the devil. But the devil I chose is a lot different than the ones you chose."
The crown prince staggered and took a few steps back, unable to bear the immense pressure bearing down on him. Even that was not enough. The next instant, he was on the ground, kneeling.
The Emperor sighed. "What is the point in bringing all these people here? Don’t you know what happened to the other orders, son? You should have run away the moment you saw him. You could have at least saved your life. It is not your fault. It is my fault. This old man has neglected you time and again. I did not raise you right."
Before he could finish talking, a burst of blood red aura exploded, and there was blood everywhere. The air roared with the power of blood. Alzara placed her hand around her father as a blood barrier surrounded both of them, not letting even a single attack reach them.
However, beyond that barrier, all hell broke loose. Blood tendrils shot up from the ground, and blood weapons materialized out of thin air. An unholy blood storm erupted, completely wrecking that section of the royal palace.
Columns cracked and collapsed under the sheer pressure, marble exploding into dust as waves of crimson energy tore through everything in their path. Blood tendrils writhed like living beasts, snapping around bodies, crushing armor, ripping weapons from hands before impaling their owners with merciless precision.
The other C ranks tried to block the attacks with their own domains, but everything was swept away in the overwhelming tide of blood. Shield cracked, gravity fields collapsed, and elemental domains unraveled as if they had never existed.
Members from the other hidden orders were definitely there in the group, as many golems started materializing amidst the blood storm. Not that they were of any use. Damon simply had to turn the blood corrosive, and the golems immediately suffered.
While he may not have made enough progress to strengthen his soul through poison, he had made considerable progress in other areas. Making his blood only corrosive and not poisonous was no longer a huge deal for him. It was accomplished easily with a mere thought.
The blood storm surged on, indiscriminate and merciless, ripping through the remaining C-ranks as if they were nothing more than obstacles in its way. One by one, their domains failed, and their attacks became useless.
Their peak C rank power, which they were so proud of, suddenly felt like it was nothing in the presence of the all-powerful blood. They were outmatched in every way. Skills, stats, and the sheer power of their attacks couldn’t match the blood god standing in front of them.
Damon also did not hold back. He was short on time, and on top of that, he wanted to finish this fight before someone sniffs out something. He was only using his blood essence to fight, and even if someone swept over this area with their sense, they should only see a random vampire fighting.
Still, he did not want to take any chances. This needed to be over soon.
Damon pumped up the full power of his newly opened meridians, and his primordial core and mana flowed like a melody, except it was a melody of death and destruction.
The Crown Prince paled. The C ranks around him were already dead or dying. He knew that Damon had attacked the other orders, but there were a lot of rumors about that event. Some said that the venom sigil was the one who was truly behind wiping out the Umbra’s hand and the beast masters.
Some talked about the hidden elves who suddenly surfaced and slaughtered those who dared to defile the desert. Some others even mentioned the monster that had stepped out of the legacy world of the Umbra’s Hand.
The crown prince had personally confirmed two out of these three rumors. He had seen the elves, and he had also seen the monster now loitering in the Umbra’s hand base. This was why he dared to underestimate the bloodsucker in front of him.
He chalked it up to a mere coincidence that the bloodsucker was present when all three orders essentially went bust. If anything, he assumed that the bloodsucker managed to unlock some sort of treasure from the fairy lands that made his sister delusional. He did not think that there was anything more to the rumors. That is... until now...
Reality crashed down on him like a collapsing sky. "No..." he whispered hoarsely, nails digging into the ruined marble as he struggled to breathe under the crushing pressure. "That’s not possible... you’re just a vampire... just a dark faction stray..."
Damon stopped a few steps in front of him. The storm parted. Blood hovered in the air, suspended like a frozen sea, droplets trembling. He looked down at the kneeling prince, eyes cold and utterly devoid of pity.
The crown prince laughed weakly, hysteria bleeding into his voice. "So this is it? You kill me, and suddenly the empire is saved? You think my death changes anything?"
Damon tilted his head slightly. "No."
The blood around the prince tightened, coiling like chains around his limbs, lifting him just enough that his knees barely touched the ground.
"Your death doesn’t change anything," Damon said.
Behind the barrier, Alzara clenched her fists, tears streaming down her face. She wanted to look away. She couldn’t. This was her brother, but the man she knew had died long ago.
The emperor stood silent, shoulders heavy, eyes hollow. He did not speak. He did not stop it. He had already chosen his side.
The crown prince’s gaze flickered toward his father, desperation finally breaking through the arrogance. "Father... I..."
The emperor closed his eyes. "I failed you," he said quietly. "But I will not fail the desert again."
A scythe of blood appeared and swung down at the delirious crown prince. The man’s face paled and contorted, filled with helplessness and resentment. All his plans had worked, and everything was about to come to fruition, but at the very end....
