Chapter 6 Reassess
Meet up with Zazu outside the capitol's dungeon, as usual he does not look happy to see me. I'm not eager to spend time with him either so I say nothing to him and just follow him inside the dungeon.
"Now show me what you're made of."
I give him a scathing look and reply "meat."
He does not look amused but I still don't care, he's a grumpy asshole and I don't really feel any need to try and impress him at all so I simply flop down on the ground on my back and let my veins open up and let my blood flow outwards. DDBG withdraws inside myself going from civilian mode to combat mode, focusing solely on maintaining sufficient blood flow to keep me alive and to continually refine the blood I produce.
"What are you doing?" Zazu asked with a mixture of shock and anger.
"Bleeding." I say in the same monotone as before. The blood loss is making me somewhat dizzy and euphoric, blood loss is fun.
The blood continues flowing out of me, thanks to my newly acquired blood affinity, it's easy to maintain a steady flow of blood, it leaves me feeling a little delirious to be lying in a pool of my own blood but I don't really care.
I pull out the blood cores for Never and More from out of my void ring and throw them into the pool of blood so they can reactivate. Not long afterwards they reform into their blood bat form, a little more solid than the last time, thanks to the improved magical saturation of my spilled blood.
"What are those?" Zazu asks still looking at me strangely, though that could be because I'm continually bleeding out, or that I'm on the ground naked. Who knows?
"My little helpers, aren't they adorable?"
"Why are you naked?"
"Well isn't it obvious?" I ask waving my hand around me to indicate the pool of blood. "Clothes would just get in the way and get dirty.
"You are a mess."
"mmm." I reply, my cock hard, it's leaking tip, demanding that I should pay attention to it. I ignore it, erections are a distraction to my work.
I focus on the task at hand and start making a few more minions to add to the collections, namely a [Blood Beetle Breeder], a [Blood Butterfly Matriarch] and a [Blood Bee Queen]. Then I let them soak in my blood, while I offer them a piece of my soul, and my mind. With my new affinities, it's easier than ever before, as blood affinity makes it easier to shape their bodies, soul affinity allowing me to better shape their souls and mind affinity making it simple enough to transfer large amounts of information telepathically. It still takes a while though as I'm instilling them with certain traits via a mixture of blood and magic for the first time.
Blood continues to pool around me for some time, until I finally have enough to create a [Blood Boar]. This one is more solid than previous versions, with crystallised blood as it's bones and gallons of enriched blood surrounding it to provide support and cushioning.
I mount the blood boar and glance over at Zazu who is tapping his foot impatiently, with his arms crossed, glaring at me. "Do you always take this long to get to work?"
I shrug. "Quality work takes time."
I remain seated upon my blood boar continually bleeding, with a blood butterfly matriarch on my head, a blood bee queen just above my heart and a blood beetle breeder chewing on my thigh. Smaller unsouled versions are being produced from on top of me. The butterfly matriarch lays eggs atop my head, within the small but bloody wounds she creates with her wings. The blood bee queen burrows into my chest using her blood crystal stinger as a tiny shovel while creating smaller winged drones to serve as an army. As for the beetle breeder, it chews up my thigh and digests it creating a mixture of pure blood beetles and hybrid blood and bone beetles.
I'm a mess but it's effective in it's own way, less blood is being spilled on to the ground as three of the new minions soak up the blood to produce their armies.
All three of them have chosen different classes. The beetle chose to become an Alchemist, the butterfly a Priest and the bee a Lord.
I'm still biding my time bleeding, unconcerned about Zazu, I don't want to join the Irregulars, I'm still stuck, until I'm strong enough to defy the whims of two demigod kings.
Eventually I've pooled enough blood that I can create my blood bear and have him serve as my vanguard as I can't rely on Zazu to keep me safe and I should focus my efforts on creating better blood minions, rather than relying on inefficient golems of other natures.
I ensoul and instruct the blood bear and blood boar, which required a lot more mana and mental energy than I would have liked.
[Soul strengthen] helps to counter some of the damage that I've inflicted on my soul but it'll still take some time to repair fully and the first floor entrance room doesn't have sufficient mana saturation to account for all my spells and blood loss. Even though [Pound of Flesh] provides significant advantages it expends more of my soul and experience than my earlier efforts at creating my 'brothers', the cost is higher but the effects seem worth it for the moment. I still have to subject it to further experimentation to determine its worth.
I cut off the flow of blood so that only the bee queen is allow to continue producing drones.
I nudge the blood boar with a thought and it starts moving as does the blood bear.
The lesser blood bees, beetles and butterflies all roost upon my body, making me look even more ridiculous but such is life.
"Finally." Zazu states rolling his eyes as he walks behind me.
I say nothing and let my blood bear charge forth recklessly to destroy traps and slimes that might get in the way.
The bear moves quickly as Never and More scout ahead to determine the route and kill off some of the basic slimes along the way.
Not much of note happens until the tenth floor, as none of the slimes pose much of a threat to my bloody army. The slime king merely serves a momentary obstacle until it's smashed by the blood bear.
From then on things finally start getting interesting again, floor eleven witnesses a massacre of true goriness.
I get off the blood boar for a bit and return to using blood tide, allowing blood to pool around my ankle and feet to serve as my temporary mount. This allows the blood boar to charge and rampage to it's heart content, using it's blood crystal tusks to gore and eviscerate. It is backed up the blood bear who joins the rampage, tearing off spider legs and ripping out spider guts with it's blood crystal claws.
As for the bee, beetle and butterfly progenitors, they occupy bloody spider carcasses and use the bodies to gestate new and improved progeny. Adding a little poison to the next generation. Admittedly the poison isn't powerful enough to do a lot of extra damage in a short period of time but every little bit helps in a battle.
Progress only becomes faster as the armies of bees, beetles and butterflies compete to reproduce faster and faster. Flocks of bees and butterflies will swarm the spiders to inflict deadly injuries, so that their mothers can reproduce within them.
The beetle swarms with his army leading the charge against the spiders upon the ground, laying waste to them and converting dead spiders into beetle soldiers.
This continues until floor 21 where the insectoid army of thousands allow for their larger compatriots to take over the attacking role while they play support.
Essentially Never, More, Boris the blood bear and Noph the blood boar lead the charge inflicting fatal damage upon the ogres, while the bees, beetles and butterflies, reproduce within the corpses. Not a speck of blood or bone is overlooked, as both the bees and butterflies can reproduce using the blood, while the beetle can make use of the remaining flesh and bone using a weaker variant of [Flesh & Blood] to create `elite beetles' with bone exoskeleton.
The bee, beetle and butterfly progenitors grow incrementally bigger with every kill, until they can no longer rest upon my body so easily in between battles.
By the time we've slaughtered our way past the troll town on the fourtieth floor, the blood beetle is massive, outweighing the boar and has become my new mount. It's new name is Alphonse and while it's level is still not very high at level 12, it's still enough for it to choose a second class as a Mage, and pick up [Mana Manipulation] and [Mana efficiency] as it's free skill and perk. Where before it had to burrow into corpses to eat it from the inside out, now it just swallows them whole and converts them into tinier versions of itself. Alphonse is as tall as horse and as thick as a boar.
The Butterfly Priest is twice as wide as the bear, though most of it's wingspan and floats behind me, providing [Blessing]s to it's short lived progeny. The blessing provides a very minor non specific boost to all stats (roughly 1% of base stats). It'd be more effective if she had more mana or a patron god but that will take time to decide, it's still too early. Her name is Alice and her second class is also Mage and she picked the same skill and perk as Alphonse.
As for the bee lord Betty she is about the length of my body and darts in and out commanding her bee children to sting and die for her. Her secondary class is also Priest, providing another source of blessings to the team. Her Lord skill [Armament] helps to equip her soldiers while her perk [Lord's army] provides a small proportional boost to the effect of equipment based on cost.
I stall out on floor 41, where I mass produce blood bees and butterflies myself to swarm the fire birds in the area to death. Then I just lay down and bask in the glares of Zazu as I bleed and bleed for who knows how long until blood pools around me like a river and my masterwork is complete.
A [Bloody Behemoth], a flying monstrosity, several meters long, a little like a dragon in shape, snake like in body but with giant wings and spikes of crystallised blood along its body to serve as defense. My original plan was to cover it entirely in crystalised blood armor but then it'd be far too heavy to fly.
Despite numerous tests, the bloody behemoth cannot maintain flight for more than a minute at a time, so it's still very much a work in progress. The mana consumption to keep it flying is terrifying, the only reason it's sort of functional is that it's a Mage and the dungeon provides high levels of mana.
I partially ensouled it as it's body is too massive for my soul to be sufficient to afford it, so it has a mere soul kernel which will grow with time and mana. Then I provided telepathic training so that it would consume the firebirds to improve itself. I haven't named him yet. It's a decent trump card, though I'm still stuck on relying on blood butterflies and bees to do the bulk of the attacks.
Progress through floors 41 to 50 is slow and tiresome as I continually try and improve upon my new party of blood minions via use of [Killer teacher] and regular infusions of my blood and mana. Most of them have blood affinity now at least, so it helps with maintaining their bodies and with certain spells/skills. Their levelling is fairly slow, compared to my brothers' as the threat to their lives' are low due to them being ensouled golems, that and there is a mismatch between the fragments of my souls and their bodies. Or at least that's my conjecture, it's hard to tell for sure without more experiments but it seems like the most likely possibility.
Floor 51 is where I open my mouth and firmly insert my foot in it, aggravating Zazu immensely.
"Are you going to be fine watching me murder your cousins" I said, waving my hands around the dungeon floor to take in the arid landscape and the sparse populations of large lizards above ground.
"No relations of mine." Zazu replies glaring at me, eyeing my naked and somewhat bloody body unfavourably.
I smile back at him upon my seat upon Alphonse rubbing my semi hard cock against blood crystal shell. All of my new pets have slowly been accumulating greater purity in their souls and in their body, absorbing the mana and blood spilled to improve their blood cores and reinforce their blood crystal bones and or weaponry. I look him over carefully, he's only barely dressed in a loin cloth and he's remarkably clean considered the wholesale slaughter I've engaged in over the last few days or so I've been down here. Time gets a bit wonky when you move from floor to floor and there's no real day or night, I'm not exactly sure how much time has passed, but I'm starting to feel an itch within me that wants to be scratched and while Zazu isn't conventionally attractive, what with being a large bipedal lizard, I've read some interesting accounts about lizardmen and I'm painfully curious and I cannot stop myself from asking.
"Is it true what they say about Lizard Men?"
Zazu sighs in visible frustration, having accompanied me with stiff silence for the majority of our excursion in the dungeon. I had mostly ignored him and focused on my own goal of refining my combat style and advancing my knowledge of classes through my newly made pets. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you have two dicks?" I ask, eager for some excitement, sure he hates me, but he's muscular enough and it's been days since I've had sex and I'm hardening up in anticipation.
"Of course you'd ask that. It's none of your concern either way."
I pout and dismount from Alphonse, letting my pets move ahead without me while I move closer to Zazu. "Come on, I'm dying to know." I said, placing my hands on his shoulders and moving in closer so that my hard cock rubs against his scaly stomach. It feels a little weird, his scales are cool to the touch and has an unusual texture compared to the softness of skin.
"Get off me." Zazu replied angrily grabbing at my wrists, in an effort to push me away but I'm a lot stronger physically thanks to all my efforts of perfecting Troll Transformation and I'm not so easy to move.
I try and cop a feel with a [Mage Hand] but there's nothing there to grab and I walk off disappointed, easily breaking his grip. "Ugh, no wonder you're so cranky, you've got no dick."
I'm pushed to the ground and I do my best to hide my smile as Zazu pins me beneath him and I feel two things poking my bare backside "I'll teach you some fucking manners."
One hand continues to pin me down, while the other presses his two cocks together and the next second both 8 inch cocks are rammed into my hole forcibly. "FUCK!" I scream as his cocks stretch out my insides. They're not the biggest I've ever had but the way they stretch out my insides is distinct. Originally they stuck out somewhat diagonally from each other, like two fingers in an eye gouging move but it's different when they're lodged inside me. They push in and also outwards in an effort to separate. It's intense.
"See what you've made me done. This is all your fault!"
"mmm" I groan as I'm not sure if I'm more in pain or in love with his cocks. It's definitely different from what I'm used to. I squeeze with my ass, trying to confine the two cocks, to keep me from splitting apart.
"You like this little slut, don't you?" Zazu said striking my bare ass with his free hand, while pushing in deeper.
"Could be better, you should go faster." I reply deliberately provoking him.
"SHUT UP."
Zazu covers my mouth with his free hand, his claws digging into my cheek as he thrusts forcefully into me.
I lean back into his thrusts, so my back is pressed against his front and I can feel both his cocks more deeply into me.
"Gods, you're depraved." Zazu complains all the while thrusting harder and faster into me as I rock my butt back and forth to feel him deeper in me.
{Fuck me good} I beg telepathically, linking my mind with his, just a little, he's a bit closed up, so I can't share much in the way of sensations with him but our horniness blurs a little into each other, which gives the sex a little bit more zest.
"Fucking demon, I'm going to break you." Zazu said before losing himself to the rut, his hands moving to my waist, his sharp claws digging into my relatively soft belly, drawing blood as his pace increased, his thrusting getting rougher and more urgent.
I moaned, thinking how much better it'd be if I had Lidan's cock in my mouth at the same time. The idle thought and the relentless prostate pounding pushed me over the edge and I lost myself for a moment as I surged in bliss, painting the sand beneath me in white.
Zazu followed me a moment later into bliss, as my inner walls clamping around both of his cocks driving him into a fucking frenzy before he fired into me in a 1,2 discharge, each cock shooting off a second apart, giving the illusion of two people shooting simultaneously. It's fascinating, it really makes me want to pin down Zazu and dissect him but I squash that urge, controlling my demonic urges is hard sometimes.
Zazu finally stopped shooting into me and pulled out. It fucking hurt and I sprawled out into the sand exhausted but also sort of amused, I could see my insides,(via astral projection) my ass was gaping wide open, all red and white.
"That never happened. Do you hear me?" Zazu ranted, looking slightly unhinged.
"Nothing happened got it." I said lazily, kind of amused that Zazu seemed to hate me more after fucking me but I was satisfied. My itch was well and truly scratched and I got a new energy profile to explore and digest.
I stared at my arm and looked closer to see my skin changing subtly from irregular patterns to hexagonal skin scales all over. I gained a scale armour of my own, it darkened the shade of my skin a bit but now my skin was smoother and tougher than before.
I looked back to see Zazu's cocks retracting into himself, which was endlessly fascinating, reptilian physiology was so interesting. I could feel that my regeneration had become deeper by another layer, having picked up a weaker version of [Total Regeneration]. I wondered whether I could learn how to retract my dick into me, like I did with my demonic wings, something to explore later.
I let my mind wander as my body recovered from the hate fuck. My new scale armor covered some of the weakness of my current combat style, providing me with a natural armor while naked and it also had an interesting feel to it, smooth and cool like a snakes skin. I wondered how Lidan would like it.
Eventually I got up and resumed my efforts, though at a more sedate pace, randomly dissecting lizard carcasses to better understand their scaly exteriors and their inner workings. I even had Boris capture some lizards so I could `stress test' their recovery, seeing how long it took them to recover from minor wounds and major wounds. I did have to collect a few different test subjects in order to determine an average level for the usefulness and to replace those that outlived their usefulness or simply died.
The lizardmen had certain advantages over the trolls, while the lizardmen recovery was slower, it was also more thorough and it still allowed them to use magic and was more innate than the trolls [Rapid Regeneration] which ate up all their magical potential.
Either way Zazu went back to ignoring me after our little rutting session and I continued my slaughter of lizards and snakes all the way till floor 69 where we hit the spatial array guarded by the kings men.
The only thing that put up some fight along the way was the lightning salamander which had a tough scaled exterior, a vigorous recovery and a magic attack that paralysed enemies. It still ended up dead, swarmed by unsouled beetles and bees while I hammered it from a distance with [Blood Bolt]s.
With that my reassessment was over. Zazu and I had been intimate but I felt more estranged from him than ever, he hated me and I had no more use for him, so I was even more contemptuous of his existence than before. I didn't hate him exactly, I just found his existence pointless and I was more than eager to return to Lidan and some hot demon on demon action.
I packed up my blood minion army into my void ring, their blood cores filling up the space nicely. In their rest states, they wouldn't need as much blood or mana to be active, as they were back to being cores and I wouldn't need to worry so much about `feeding' them. Time to go back to have a much deserved rest and hopefully I'd wake up Lidan's dick in me...
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Author's Note: I suck at updates as of late. I'll try to get the next chapter out faster.
Next Chapter: Craftiness = Lucius spends some time with Fourdom the Dwarf Irregular and learns more about him and about crafting from the Royal Alchemists.
Details of new minions, since describing each one's Class progression in story (this chapter) would be a little too info dumpy. Find below a quick outline of minions name, type, appearance and Classes.
Boris: Blood bear
Appearance: A blood soaked bear, around 6 feet tall and weighing roughly 300 pounds, with a simplistic blood crystal skeleton with a squishy semi solid blood body and blood crystal claws.
Classes: Warrior & Knight Knight skill: Riding – improves coordination while mounted Knight perk light foot – reduces movement penalty from heavy armor
Noph: blood boar Classes: Warrior & fighter Appearance: large boar, with blood crystal skeleton and blood crystal claws
Alphonse: blood beetle breeder Appearance: A strange oversized blood beetle, with a blood crystal exoskeleton and blood crystal mandibles
Classes: Alchemist and Mage
Alice: blood butterfly matriarch Appearance: a small body, with large oversized wings, relatively fragile. Classes: Priest and Mage Priest skill: Blessing – provides a generic boost of stats, proportionate to mana expended
Priest skill: Sermon – share the good word with your flock to improve faith Priest Perk: Benediction – improves effects of blessings Priest Perk: Blessed congregation – improves effect of sermons
Betty: blood bee queen Appearance – about 3 feet long, with a blood crystal stinger and a squishy body, containing a highly specialised blood core.
Classes Lord and Priest Lord Skill: armament – equips army with weapons Lord Perk: Lord's army – provides a proportional boost to army dependent on expense paid by lord
Lord Perk: Noblesse Obliges – The greater the expenditure, the greater the reward
bloody behemoth Appearance: An oversized dragon/basilisk combination, with blood crystal skeleton and blood crystal spikes to deter aerial attacks.
Classes: Mage & Blood Mage