Epic of Caterpillar
chapter-334

[Day 202]

Ding!

[Kireina] has Awakened the Unique Transcendental Skill [Inner Real; Soul World; Level 1]

As I woke up I immediately received a System Notification, I had obtained or well… Awakened a new Skill.

And it didn't sound at all like something simple…

Whenever I activated the Skill, my consciousness was transferred to my Soul, the inside of it, the small space which is named Soul World, an Innate Realm that formed inside of my Soul where the souls that I've eaten are stored and slowly "digested".

Each use of the Skill didn't cost anything, not even MP or Soul Energy, but doing anything inside of it did cost a large amount of Soul Energy…

I was still rather unclear, but with this, I could reincarnate the Souls I've eaten… However, I don't see much use outside of it…

It would interesting if living people could enter, but it seems that every time I try to open a gate in the outside world for others to enter, it is a very small hole, nothing would really fit in. I assumed that it could be perhaps related to the Level of the Skill, so I just need to level it up… But how?

Do I just, reincarnate the souls in here? There are a lot of nameless souls of monsters and demi-humans that I've eaten, aside from the ones of the Vampires, the rest were quite dull and weak, so I decided to reincarnate a batch of these weak souls, sending them to my Kingdom to random citizens who were still inside of their mother's bellies.

I discovered that I could only send fifty souls before I spent too much Soul Energy and felt very strong fatigue… so I decided to go back to the outside world and wake up.

I opened my Item Box and took the [Nether Sword of Undying Pain] which stored thousands of souls ready for consumption. When I ate around a hundred, I finally felt at ease.

And just as fifty souls disappeared, a few hundred appeared inside my Innate Realm again… So I guess it's an endless cycle? At the very least it seems that the Skill leveled up.

Ding!

[The Level of the [Innate Realm; Soul World; Level 1] Skill has increased!]

I tried to open a gate to the outside again to see any differences between Skill Levels, but it was just a few centimeters bigger, not enough yet… Aside from this, I felt the space inside of my Soul growing larger, at least a few kilometers.

I decided to leave these experiments for later as the Resistance members came rushing towards our room, some of my wives were sleeping without clothes, so I had to block the door or the centaurs would enter without shame.

"L-Lady Kireina…! T-This horrible…! T-The Resistance bases in all of City 1… t-they were all annihilated overnight!" said a young Centaur, who was Agamocles little brother. Funnily enough, he had the same name as his older brother, so he was named Agamocles Junior…

"T-The worst thing is that they didn't even leave any survivor aside from someone who managed to escape only by their own whim… they let him escape so he could inform us of the horrors they did!"

"Those damned bloodsuckers!!!"

"Lady Kireina, please, we must hurry to their base and execute vengeance against those damned demons!"

"Let's burn them all, until nothing, not even ashes remain!"

"My brother was there…!"

Sofarpia and Sofelaia quickly came alongside Jerold and Aegina, calming down the furious Centaurs.

"Calm down, Master is not just a tool for you to use! Don't come to her demanding things as if she were to do whatever you wanted!" Said Sofarpia, angered over the centaur's insolence.

"That's right, calm down, aren't you the Knights of my father? Where are your honor and your pride?" shouted Sofelaia.

"In times of war, a cool head is always needed, knights… please, calm down, and let's assess things correctly…" Said Aegina.

"That's… right"

"We apologize, Lady Kireina…"

"You have done so much for us; get we ask for even more…"

"I apologize on behalf of the behavior of my men, Lady Kireina," said Agamocles, just after reprimanding his younger brother.

All of the large and armored prideful centaurs kneeled in a strange way that only centaurs could do, offering their apologies.

I had already decided in destroying the Vampire base at City 1, so their request wasn't really any trouble for me, but they were very annoying.

Also, I knew that the bases were being annihilated without any survivors left beforehand, thanks to my Phantom Flesh Bats, I saw it all through their eyes. I could have stopped them if I could, the abilities and Skills at my disposal allowed me to do this, but I felt that it was unnecessary. After all, the less of these troublesome centaurs, the easier it will be to convert this Kingdom into my Vassal Nation.

So using my enemy and the one who wanted to snatch this Kingdom before me to get rid of the troublesome Resistance is quite a nice choice. And the best is that no one would suspect anything from me if they don't know the full capabilities of my Skills, and Sofelaia and Sofarpia are fully loyal to me, they won't reveal what am I capable of and will only think that I just didn't know what was going on through the night, without blaming me for not using my powers to save everyone like a Heroine.

Anyways, after the centaurs calmed down, we had a large breakfast to regain energy while planning and thinking on our next course of action.

City 1 Vampire base, according to the Vampires that I interrogated and converted to my side, is a large building resembling a manor, which to a family of Dukes, it is presumed that the Dukes were either secretly assassinated or converted into Vampires.

The security is quite tight and the Vampires have some Arachnes in their side, Demon Arachnes who were converted into Vampires. After becoming Vampire Arachnes, their threads and hair became Demon Thread and Hair, becoming even stronger, aside from this, they are capable of creating incredible traps with their threads with the Skill [Trap Creation], which they had used to surround the Manor with.

Aside from this, several Vampires and Demon Vampires are protecting and guarding the place in big groups of over ten. The Leader seems to be a Noble Vampire named Jagger, who is a Half Goat Demon and Half Gargoyle Demon, after converting into a Vampire, these two powers somehow awakened into Vampire powers instead of being usually sealed or weakened.

He used to be a thief and a criminal organization leader, he's known for liking to toy with innocents lives and has a sadistic side that he can barely keep hold of.

To be honest, I don't really care about his pasts, or what he did wrong or bad, those have no correlation with me and I don't particularly hold any grudge either, he's just standing in the way of my goals, if he begs for mercy, I may convert him into my Vampire as well, if not, he will become dinner.

The Divine Beast flesh that he possesses is unknown, and he also wields light dark-colored armor and a special Magic Artifact in the form of a dagger that he can throw to its victims, the dagger ability is to automatically go back to its user, it's also coated in a deadly poison that can inflict several status ailments. He has been seen to have a high affinity with Poison and Earth Attribute Magic.

Poison should not be a problem for me, but Earth, which I only possess a partial resistance could be, even with all of my skills and abilities, it's never wrong to be cautious.

Instead of invading once again from the underground, we will invade from the skies.

Why? It's obvious, they must already know that we can invade from the underground, and had most likely prepared several traps to welcome us with open arms.

Attacking from the skies would be unthinkable for them because they have their front secured with guards, traps, and Demon Beasts, so they would never expect it, well, that's what I think.

But even what I think could be wrong, so I decided to just do both.

A group made up of Golems and Undead that I will summon will invade from the underground, and while they have their hands occupied by killing the hundreds of low-level monsters, we will ambush them from the front.

With my Slime Clones, I can easily spread them around and make them deactivate the traps with [Assassin Arts; Disarm Trap], so there isn't any problem in that regard.

After a plentiful breakfast where my beloved child inside of me had its fill, we quickly prepared everything needed, with the help of my wife's MP, we quickly summoned several Golems and Undead Skeletons.

The golems were simply made out of the ground, which was possessed by the souls stored inside of my soul and a lot of Magic, they will manipulate the earth and form a tunnel for the Skeletons. There were normal Infantry Skeletons wielding bone swords, axes, and lances, and then there were Mounted Skeletons and other terrifying monsters like Yokais and Demon Beasts.

At this point, the Resistance members had already assumed that summoning monsters was something normal for witches, and didn't question me on how I could summon so many living beings out of nowhere.

Although this is a misconception, witches cannot summon monsters in this level of quantity and quality they would quickly run out of Mana Points before that.

As the golems began to move the earth, the army of monsters followed them. I calculated that they would take around three hours to reach the manor, we started our preparations inside an abandoned house, which underground had been expanded by me.

Until then, I began spreading my Slime Clones and disarmed the traps, while patiently waiting…

Jagger was a Mixed Demon Race born in the slums, his parents died at a young age and he only managed to survive at the age of two years old due to his capabilities as a Demon, inheriting the abilities of his two fathers, he grew faster and evolved, reaching adulthood at the age of three thanks to the power of Existence Evolution.

Jagger grew in a hostile environment and he became hostile to protect himself. The slums of the Thanatos Kingdom are not any better than Athetosea, perhaps even worst, as Demons, unlike Humans, have fewer restraints in their own way of living, and there were even fewer authorities constantly watching over them.

Before he evolved, he killed and stole, and slowly gained Experience Points from his victims, killing adults was too troublesome, so he often predated in the younger children who also lived in the slums, he didn't have any option either, if he didn't kill and stole, he would have died.

Due to his mixed-race, Jagger had a disgusting appearance and was often ridiculed by the young children, however, he used this appearance to seep fear in those who dared to disobey him, and as he evolved, he became more ominous and bloodthirsty.

He grew with only one thought on his mind, "survive". And he used every tool at his disposal to do so. He manipulated others, sold his allies and "friends", enslaved others with magic and invaded criminal organizations, absorbing them into his own.

He was known as a tyrannical criminal leader, feared by many… Until the Noble Demon Families took a notice of his existence, and asked the trusty Vampire Family, usually used to do the "dirty work" to dispose of him and his entire group…

Although he grew in strength considerably and gathered countless weapons and magical artifacts, Jagger was nothing before a Noble Vampire, on his last moments, he was offered with eternal life.

Accepting the ritual as his last resort, he was embraced by the arms of the Goddess of Blood, Agatheina, and due to his incredible vitality due to his mixed Demon Race, he survived the ritual, barely… awakening as a Vampire, he gained immense strength that he had never experienced before. The natural bloodthirst did not affect him, as he was already a bloodthirsty monster, to begin with.

Even if he was known as a monster, he wasn't dumb at all, Jagger was a cunning man, he knew how to play his cards well, and used this second opportunity to grow even stronger and reach higher heights.

He quickly raised on his position, and evolved into a Noble Vampire, his strength was recognized by the Vampire Family Head, Lady Aleksandra and he was given an entire group of Vampires to take care of while assessing different tasks and request, slowly building back his empire.

As the years went through, he gained more recognition and fame, alongside large merits and riches, Aleksandra liked how Jagger was very competent and always accomplished the tasks given to him, no matter how hard or merciless they were, his mind was unaffected by the thoughts of guilt, making him the perfect killing machine.

And one day, due to the grace of the Goddess of Blood, he was given a new task and new artifacts and powers… he devoured the flesh of a Divine Beast, incrusted crimson crystals inside of his body and obtained a special tracking item.

"Find the irregular, and kill it!"

These were the only words that Lady Aleksandra gave to him, and they were enough for Jagger.

Even after knowing over the death of three Noble Vampires and the disappearance of Keenan, Jagger remained calm and cautious, he obtained valuable information about the raid that the Vampire hideout in City 2 received, and he prepared everything beforehand.

He used the Demon Arachne Vampires to set thousands of traps in the underground without stopping, he divided his men and gave them valuable weapons and armor, alongside special items and high-grade potions of various types. He knew that the irregular would once again attack from the ground bellow, and had prepared himself accordingly… or so he thought.