Harem King's Collection: Turning Beastkins Into Desperate Wives!-Chapter 79: Bloodskill: Consume
King Alocer was staring down the demon as Byron Aschefell helped his son to his feet. They began limping towards the back exit as they leaned on each other, one with a busted leg, one with a missing hand.
Byron gave one final look back at his king before they descended into the tunnel and saw the royal lion had finally come to understand the true cost of violence.
The king had finally experienced what true loss in battle meant, the heartbreak a parent felt when their child was claimed by such needless devastation.
For the first time in the veteran wolf’s life, he witnessed King Alocer shed a tear, even as the royal beast crossed swords with the demon once more in a clash of steel and darkness.
Byron held his son just a bit tighter as they finally escaped the wrath the beast king had brought down on his people. Well, for the time being, at least.
King Alocer was forced back a few paces by the severity in which the demon swung such a mighty blade. The king knew nobody could hold against such force for long, but the king wouldn’t be giving up without a fight.
If this was truly the end, he would do everything he could to bring this demon down with him. King Alocer steadied his concentration and reached a single hand outwards towards the creature. He activated his bloodskill despite knowing the damage it could do to him. The king activated: Consume.
Queen Talia, the late wife of King Alocer, bore the bloodskill "United Strength."
A bloodskill that allowed a user to freely transfer energy between willing targets. The user could stockpile a great amount of energy for their comrades to later use for magic or skills in this way or simply split what the group had evenly to fight on when exhaustion struck.
The uses were many, but the skill had little use against opponents, considering consent was needed to take the energy.
However, when paired with "Consume," The bloodskill King Alocer bore, one which allowed the user to steal away a targets energy, emotions, and even their very memories, it could create an endless machine of destruction.
A never-ending supply of magical power that would stand firm as long as the opponent had anything left to take from them.
It made the husband and wife an unstoppable force on the battlefield, and when it was revealed their cub, Prince Tyfin, had inherited both, their arranged marriage had been deemed a successful one, and their country rejoiced. However, not all understood the true cost of Consume.
While you could render an opponent useless and drained of everything, the user took the full weight of everything stolen. Wicked and remorseful thoughts became the users’ own.
Painful memories were relived, and emotions attached to them became the bearer’s burden. A user of this skill did not only consume what they wanted, but was forced to take on the full consequences of whoever it was used on... And King Alocer had just used that skill on a demon, a being born of only suffering.
As the beast king felt unbelievably powerful energy surge into him, the demon only laughed sadistically before it spoke.
"Finally, you will know of the true devastation you’ve caused at last, tyrant..."
The demon held up its own free hand toward the king, and let the tragedy that had created it flow forth into the lion as well, forcing the beast king to witness firsthand what crimes he had committed.
The demon spoke loudly then, as it resumed its delighted laughter. The king had finally done what the monster was waiting for
"CONSUME ALL THE HATRED YOU CAN STAND, BEAST KING! FEAST ON THE PAIN YOU’VE CAUSED! LET IT EAT AWAY WHAT REMAINED OF YOUR SANITY! LET THE SORROW OF THE DEAD CLAIM THEIR JUSTICE ON YOU!"
As the most overwhelming sadness filled the king’s heart, and as the darkness consumed his very soul, flashes of memories not his own began barreling into his mind, rapidly barraging the king with a flux of the most deranged monstrosities he had ordered to be carried out.
A human mother watching her son be skinned alive seconds before she too was dispatched. A human father being made to watch as his daughter’s body was taken and broken by the king’s beastmen.
A brother helpless to stop the assault magic from piercing his sister’s skull in time.
A beast watching helplessly as his love was slain by his own lifelong ally for simply being a human.
A collapsed building full of crying human children clawing at the heavy walls, which trapped them as they slowly starved to death.
The impossible choice of a father to choose between which child to save and which to sacrifice.
The cries of mercy as a grandparent begged for their grandchild to be spared, only to be met with vicious laughter as the child’s throat was slit...
An endless sea of such painful ends were forced to be relived by the one responsible for the pogroms, replaying over and over as his sanity broke under the true understanding of what his hatred had done.
Of whom the true monster among them was.
King Alocer fell to his knees wide-eyed and drooling as his blade clattered against the marble floor. His mind had long since broken, but even still, the demon forced even more into him, making sure the monster had plenty to linger on in the afterworld as well.
The demon began moving around the platform, placing horizontal strikes on the marble pillars, leaving gaping scars where his blade passed.
After he had struck most, the demon lifted his blade high into the air. The tyrant’s tomb had been prepared.
The demon spoke one final sentence before plunging his fiery blade into the ground, sending a fresh round of dark shockwaves into his surroundings, breaking the weakened pillars, and dropping the marble slab of the roof onto King Alocer, ending his tyrannical rule once and for all with a stony crash.
"Long live the true king. Only one more debt need be settled today."
The demon was reduced to dust by the falling marble but soon reappeared from a fresh scar, blocking the exit before Talan, Cortist, and their rapidly fading father.
Talan halted immediately in his escape when that dark blade appeared before them. They had almost made it. They were so close.
The monster chuckled hollowly as it stepped forth from that void of darkness and began speaking, just a few feet away from the panther family.
"Pity. I was going to make him choose which of his children to save. I will let you decide instead. Tell me, older son. Will it be you or your brother that falls here today?"
A heavy fist of earth rocked into the demon suddenly from the ground below, knocking him back a few paces.
Talan was so stuck on what the demon had said that he hadn’t even heard his brother chanting, but Cortist was not losing anymore family that day. The youngest panther shouted in his hatred.
"YOU WILL NOT TAKE ANOTHER BROTHER FROM ME!"
***
