Chương 168: Chapter One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Eight

Adam and Kat looked around in surprise, but they couldn't see anyone else.

"I think the objective announcement must just arrive when you set foot on the island," Adam concluded after scanning the surrounding dock thoroughly and still coming up empty-handed.

"She is in the castle, isn't she?" Kat replied. Adam spread out his perception, finding a single third-generation bloodfiend not too far away, and a potent melody much deeper in, near to what had to be the back of the island. She's not hiding like the Patriarch, Adam realised.

"It seems that way," he said. On top of the two bloodfiend melodies, Adam detected a surprising amount of humans nearby, though their melodies suggested they were drugged or spellbound, given how prevalent happiness and ecstasy were amongst the tones emanating from them. Beck had said that charm magic was a dangerous power to go up against when dealing with the Matriarch Island, so Adam figured it was why the humans all radiated such strange melodies.

It was similar to the melody he'd observed in the Sober Eel, before coming upon the bloodfiend feasting on another person. Surprisingly, there were no ghoul signatures on the island, but Emelia had told him that the Matriarch and her coven opted to keep humans alive and drain their blood without turning them, except for when they needed more bloodfiends.

"What do we do first?" Kat asked. Adam thought about it. He had a unique opportunity given how all of the bloodfiends had left to attack Moonport, though he knew that the Matriarch would be stronger at night. Beck and Emelia had both only fought her during the day, but they also hadn't been able to slip under the detection of the bloodfiends like Adam and Kat.

His instinct was to go with a surprise attack, but due to how the boss would enter a second phase and therefore couldn't die from the first blow no matter what, he had to consider how to stage his attacks in a way that they wouldn't have a prolonged fight, since taking her on directly with just the two of them was going to be extremely difficult.

Emelia's strategy for dealing with the Matriarch had always been a surprise attack to knock her into the second phase, and then a series of rapid strikes to end the fight quickly. On the other hand, Beck's fight with her in his first loop had started with a strike from invisibility followed by his team being torn apart, after which he led her through a series of traps to kill her.

Adam had a few ideas for how he could go about doing the fight, but some manner of trap or subterfuge was necessary for them to pull it off, he thought. Beck had discovered, based on talking to a lot of other people, that the Patriarch and Matriarch had mixed sets of powers, but that these sets were different for each group, except for the fact that the Patriarch always went into a dream phase before death and that the Matriarch did the same except with bone magic.

These were the only powers that were guaranteed to appear in their fights, with the rest always changing. He thought back to what powers the Patriarch had utilised. Blood, illusion, and shadow magic, on top of the dream phase. That means the Matriarch has access to bone magic, hypnosis, and shapeshifting. And maybe flesh magic too, since I don't think the Patriarch's blood powers covered that. Hypnosis is definitely a dangerous power.

Bone and flesh magic has a lot of really powerful attacks, and shapeshifting can be incredibly unpredictable I think. Ideally, I'd like to completely avoid a direct confrontation. Beck's idea of leaving a trail of traps could work, but since she doesn't have access to blood magic, she won't have a way to stop internal attacks easily, I think.

"I've decided on how we do this," Adam said, before starting his explanation. The pair of bloodfiend pretenders moved through the streets of Matriarch Island. Adam wore the Shapeshifter's Claw over his right hand, swapping out his Blood Fist Ring, and Kat was back to wearing two Duellist's Gloves. Before going for the castle, they went towards the lone third-generation bloodfiend, who was surrounded by many humans that were clearly charmed.

The building immediately stood out to Adam's Mana-sight, since a haze of violet magic floated around it. It was a repurposed three-storey residential block where the walls between apartments had been torn down to create large open floors, and inside were red-glowing lamps, giving it a sinister look from outside.

Through the windows they saw maybe forty or fifty humans dancing and cavorting like animals to the sounds of a fiddle, and it seemed the bloodfiend responsible for the hypnotic cloud was in the middle of it all, the one playing the music. Adam put a hand on Kat's enlarged shoulder. Her body felt cold to the touch. She looked back at him with her inhuman face.

"If we get any closer, we may fall victim to the hypnosis," he told her.

"I will move my third eye in there and take out the vampire." She nodded.

"But I would like to know how powerful the effect is, so would you mind entering the building when I give the signal?"

"Will you protect me from harm if I lose control of myself?" Kat asked.

"Of course." Adam floated his sculpted eye through the violet cloud of Mana, shifting it in through an open window to get a view of the interior. As he looked about, he sent blood up along the flesh cable that connected the eye to his own nerves, before moving it out in front of the eye, similar to how he'd attacked the bloodfiend on the first night. Although the bloodfiend within was surrounded by spellbound humans, none of them were close enough that Adam was worried about hitting them.

Several naked figures contorted and writhed directly at the vampire's feet, but he was only looking at the instrument as he played, as though the people weren't even there. Adam gave Kat the signal and she walked towards the door, but stopped after a second.

"I received a new affliction called ' Musical Charm'. It is slowly going up towards 100%," she said. He nodded.

"Alright, you don't have to enter, just come back here." She took a step towards the door.

"Uh," she muttered. Then she took another step towards the door.

"I cannot control my body," she said.

"The affliction is at 20% already." Adam didn't wait for her to become fully charmed and shot his blood through the crowd inside the building, diving it into the bloodfiend's ear canal and through his head and heart before causing it to crystallise. [Third Generation Bloodfiend defeated.] Kat immediately stopped walking towards the entrance.

"It went away," she said. I don't think I can do the blood-injection method. Getting too close to the Matriarch may leave me exposed to hypnosis. I don't think subterfuge is a good idea either, since if we're found out, we may not be able to leave. I thought that maybe the hypnotic effect wouldn't be instant, but it doesn't seem that way, since it was able to partially control Kat just now… Adam rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Okay, change of plans." He walked past her and into the building. She followed him in, where they found the many humans had dropped to the floor as the charm wore off, though they were quickly coming to their senses. Their melodies were confused and hostile, and they needed to hurry.

"We're killing them all," Adam told Kat. Adam floated three large balls of flesh along with him, while Kat carried two on her shoulders. They were filled with the blood of the charmed humans, and would be part of Adam's new plan on how to take out the Matriarch. He had initially thought to sneakily fill her body with his blood and then tearing it through her inside to force the second phase, after which he would crystallise the blood using a spell pattern for the Blood Crystal he'd woven with his Spidersilk Needle.

But given how hypnosis worked, he had no idea if he'd be able to trigger it that way, so he would try something else. It carried more risk and required that they split up, with Kat providing a distraction by delivering the news of the Patriarch's death to the Matriarch, while Adam attempted to sneak up from behind. Using his blood sense, Adam steered them around the few guard posts with humans that worked on behalf of the fiends.

They didn't seem to be charmed, but Adam guessed that it was either blackmail or fear that kept them employed. Maybe those spellbound humans were related to these people and used to keep them in line. He felt bad about killing them, but if he didn't get rid of the Matriarch now, she might go to Moonport to fill the Patriarch's empty spot, and then a lot more people would die.

Their deaths fuelled the power he needed to take her down, and a small part of him thought that maybe the Flayed Lady would appreciate the sacrifice and forget about any plans to curdle his memories into nightmares. Once they reached the castle in the heart of the island, Adam floated himself up onto its flat roof, finding a spot without guards to drop off his flesh bags. There were braziers on each of the four turrets protruding from the corners of the castle, though it was mainly for the sake of the human guards.

It seemed weird that the Matriarch would keep unturned humans close to her, but perhaps she enjoyed wielding power like a slave master, and he was sure that it didn't hurt that she could feed whenever she wanted, never having to leave her castle out of fear for the Patriarch. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Inside the castle, based on the light coming out from the windows on the lower floors, were more of the strange red lamps.

Adam's guess was that it was a compromise the vampires made towards the humans they kept around, and possibly the light they emitted were less harsh to their light-sensitive eyes. Adam eliminated the few guards keeping watch and then went back down to where Kat waited, taking one of the blood bags from her, but letting her keep the other because they would need it for the fight.

"If any of the guards try to stop you, just kill them," Adam told Kat.

"Will this plan work?" she asked.

"Trust me," he said.

"Killing her will give us a lot of Points, right?"

"She's a secret boss, so it'll be a lot," Adam replied.

"Understood. I will reach her sanctum and keep her distracted." Adam met her eyes.

"We've got this," he told her. Then he broke off, flying back to the roof with the last bag of blood. With the dead rooftop guards and his four flesh bags, Adam activated Beckoning Crimson, while Kat moved through the entrance of the castle below, two of the human melodies registering surprise at her arrival, but hurriedly leading her to the throne room nevertheless. Adam figured that they wouldn't dare question a bloodfiend, given their apparent servitude, and it seemed to have worked.

From Emelia and Beck, Adam knew that the room the Matriarch resided in was on the top floor of the castle, directly below the roof that he was on. Blood flowed to Adam from the spell and he activated Princely Raiment, which immediately consumed the flexible red armour on his body, though Adam's Health was still healed back to full after the raiment skill had consumed 90% of it.

As it pulled in the flesh and nearby corpses, the enormous suit of armour grew around him, pale and fleshy in appearance, with large clawed hands at the ends of its gauntlets, and a floating red crown over his head. It was sleek and tall, making him look like an apex version of the Bloodfiend Beast that Kat had turned into. Given how much material was fed into the Princely Raiment, it reached a size that rivalled the one he'd used on Interim Island to challenge John Smith.

Adam readied his left fist with the Scoundrel's Glove. Then Kat reached the throne room below him and Adam repositioned himself to be directly above the Matriarch. The bloodfiend's melody shifted into amusement at her arrival, but then Kat must've delivered the news, because it changed first into surprise, before morphing into excitement and triumph.

Kat's own melody seemed to freeze and undergo a weird change, as though she was being hypnotised, because her thoughts of hostility towards the Matriarch lessened bit by bit. I've gotta go now. Adam flung himself into the air before sending his body plummeting down towards the stone roof, pushing it to go faster than terminal velocity, leading with his left fist to break the stone ceiling.

A boom like an explosion came from around him as he broke into the throne room, his fist striking the Matriarch from above and punching her through the wooden floor of the room, breaking her highbacked chair and a fine dining table stacked high with raw flesh in the process, before continuing down through the floors below until they reached the ground which was made of stone.

By the time Adam's massive body came to a stop, the Matriarch had turned into a bloody smear, her body pressed into the stone, broken and bent. Adam looked up through the holes of the floors above to where Kat watched from the throne room, her head the only thing visible to him.

"Throw it!" he yelled. Thanks to his interruption of whatever hypnotic magic the Matriarch had cast on Kat, she had quickly regained her sense of hostility towards the bloodfiend. A moment later a flesh bag struck the ground next to him, and the blood was pulled from it and into Adam's crimson shirt. He also noticed how the bleeding from his strike on the Matriarch sent a thin stream of blood through his raiment and into his shirt, thanks to the Scoundrel's Glove and his Bleed upgrades.

Adam raised his right fist, powering up the Shapeshifter's Claw which made his raiment's gauntlet grow larger alongside it, while preparing to activate the spell construct he'd woven onto his arm, which would trigger Blood Crystal. His theory was that if he activated it with the claw Relic, then it would be twice as effective, due to its damage-doubling power. Before he could shoot his blood into the downed Matriarch, a cascade of sharp bones exploded out of her.

But the moment Adam's raiment was struck, the effect of his crimson shirt activated, just as he was knocked back. The Relic was completely filled with blood, making its exponential effect reach its upper limit as the blood nova exploded out from him, cratering the stone floor, scouring the walls, and destroying most of the Matriarch's broken body. Adam was flung away from her and skidded along the floor, just in time to crush two human guards underfoot as they came to their master's defence.

The Matriarch wasn't completely dead, as she started to get up from the floor, but all the skin, flesh, and blood was gone, leaving behind just a malformed skeleton. It had sharp talons on its hands and feet, and its head was like a porcelain mask, nothing at all like an exposed cranium, since it had full lips, a nose, carved eyes, pointed ears, and all the other features of a face. From the skeleton's back were two wings and a long hook-tipped tail.

Adam was about to lunge forward when Kat fell through the holes in the floors above, tearing down through the Matriarch with her claws as she landed on the ground. The strike wasn't very effective, but it drew the boss' attention to her. The Matriarch spun, swinging her tail into Kat. Clang! As Kat parried the attack with the daggers in her overlarge hands, a red-glowing weak spot appeared in the centre of the Matriarch's torso.

Thanks to its location, Adam saw how a cage of bone within the ribcage was closed over the source of the bloodfiend's melody. It's her heart. Just like the slugwhales, it's surrounded by bone. He shot himself forward, using both his powerful raiment and his flesh magic to propel him, and then he struck the middle of the Matriarch's skeleton with his right fist which was still powered up from the Shapeshifter's Claw.

The strike tore all the way through her, exploding her bones and destroying the cage around her heart, killing her. < < Secret Stage Objective Complete > > < Defeated the Matriarch > A chest of bone and a floating pair of white sigils appeared where the Matriarch had died. Adam immediately moved to inspect the sigils. < < Secret Weapon Obtained > > < Bone Sigils (Epic) — The magical tattoos used by the Matriarch to manipulate bones to her will > They're exactly like Beck said.

These will without a doubt fuse with my blood sigils.

"I did not expect you to be hiding a power such as this," Kat remarked, looking up at Adam's large armoured frame. It was slowly shedding away, the blood and flesh turning black and unusable.

"It requires a lot of material and setup to create," he replied.

"I thought we would have a hard time with this boss, given your many warnings, but thanks to this power of yours, it was no big deal." Adam scoffed.

"She survived my two strongest attacks. Your timing with the parry was the real clincher."

"When I stood before her in her throne room, I did not believe I could defeat her," she admitted.

"I am glad I was useful." It seems she doesn't realise she was being hypnotised. That's scary.

"You don't have to be so humble. You're the reason we didn't all immediately die to the Patriarch. You saved Sofia and Luo from the mimic as well, and protected us when the Changeling appeared." Kat met his eyes. He could tell his praise embarrassed her, but there was also a part of her that seemed glad.

"If only you wouldn't have done as Aeran told you and killed the people in your previous groups. You have the potential to go far."

"If not for those sacrifices, I would not have been this strong," she said.

"I don't believe that for a moment," Adam told her.

"The All-Mother chose you. She wouldn't just appear before anyone, I think."

"In the next Stage, I will try my best," she replied. He couldn't say for sure whether she meant that or not, based on how her melody wavered. Aeran had planted a cursed seed in her, tainting her with the belief that strength only came from sacrifice. There's still three days left. Hopefully I can change her mind before then. Adam took the bone sigils, sending his Spidersilk Needle back to the Player House.

He knew it was a risk, and though he relied on the woven spell constructs for things like Heart Lance and Shade Barrier, he still had the knowledge of how to cast the spells manually without them. Besides, I want to use the rest of the Stage to properly learn how to wield this new type of magic. The white sigils appeared on his hands around the jet-black ones for Red Prince, fitting into parts of the pattern that had been empty before, as though completing an unfinished puzzle.

They showed up like flaring spikes and partially-formed rings around the crown symbol of the trigger sigil inside his glass hand, as well as snaking and coiled lines over and under the recursive finger pattern on his left hand's control sigil. His cube asked if he wanted to change his stats to Bone Mage, but they were literally the same as the Blood Mage's, so there was no point.

He still thought about swapping to the stats for the Spidersilk Needle, and figured he'd do it once he got back to Interim Island, seeing as he could buy the Health that it was lacking. He reached out with his Mana to the destroyed corpse of the Matriarch, lifting the bones up in front of himself to bend and shape them into something new. Kat looked on in fascination as Adam created the humerus, ulna, and radius bones for an arm, connecting them together and adding more bones to shape the hand.

He sleeved it with muscles and tendons, then flesh, veins, and skin, filling it with blood and shifting it around. With a simple gesture of his control sigil, Adam swung the arm, manipulating all three separate magic types simultaneously and tearing a line through the stone floor with ease. He grinned to himself. It's so much more powerful now! He used his new magic to lift up the sculpted cranium of the Matriarch, pulling it to himself and yanking out one of the fangs in the upper jaw.

< < Collectible Relic > > < Superior Bloodfiend Fang (Epic) — The canine fang of a progenitor bloodfiend >"Look at this," he said and showed it to Kat.

"A shame we could not collect the ones from the Patriarch," she remarked. After putting the fangs in his backpack with the ones he'd collected from the fiddle player, Adam opened the Relic Chest, but unfortunately it didn't have increased rarity like the one they'd gotten from the Patriarch. The first two options were repeated Rares, but the last two were Epic, both completely new to Adam, so it wasn't a total loss.

The first looked like a silvery neck plate that covered most of the throat, as well as the top of the torso. The other was a black metallic quiver with red-tipped bolts inside. < < Relics Available > > < Illusionist's Mask (Rare) — Transform the mask into any face you know, allowing you to mimic their identity and voice. The effect breaks if someone calls you by your true name.

12-hour cooldown > < Nightfarer's Cloak (Rare) — Significantly slows falling velocity | Wrap around your body to meld into the shadows for 20 seconds. 10-minute cooldown > < Gorget of the Connoisseur (Epic) — Consuming the lifeblood of a humanoid heals 10 Health for every litre imbibed.

Health cannot be restored by any other means | All consumption-based afflictions are negated > < Blood Bolt Quiver (Epic) — All crossbow bolts are replaced with Blood Bolts, which incrementally apply the Bloodloss affliction with every hit. Once fully applied, Bloodloss triggers, dealing 25% of target's Health as damage | Stamina cost of reloading increased by 25% > I wonder if Lasse's compound bow arrows would be considered bolts, since his bow was fused with a crossbow rifle.

Using the Blood Bolt with Barrage Master's Coat and Ranger's Lucky Charm would make it possible to kill anything with instantly repeated activations of Bloodloss. There's gotta be some downside to it though, since it's way too strong. But I guess it wouldn't work on the Cloud Leviathan or Voidspawn, since they don't have blood. The gorget is like the Anti-Toxicity Choker.

I guess it would be quite powerful for a blood mage, but I don't think Beckoning Crimson counts as consumption, so I'd lose out on my main healing spell.

"I don't really fancy any of these," Adam admitted.

"I will take the gorget," Kat said.

"It will work well with my Fiend Tongue."

"Have you been using it?" Adam asked. He hadn't seen her eat any hearts yet.

"No. I have been worried about getting sick from it." Adam grinned.

"Weren't you the one who said the Trials don't follow the rules of reality?" Kat reached out and grabbed the Relic. It equipped itself to her throat, which, given that she was still in her monstrous form, added to her already strange appearance, though he was sure it would look nice on her once she was back to being human.

"Perhaps I was worried like you," she said.

"Eating hearts is something others may see as repulsive and evil."

"You know what, I think that when you get back to Interim Island, you need to get the Beast weapon type from the silverfish vendor. It has an interesting consumption-based evolution, and I think it can fuse with the Bloodfiend Beast. Plus, it's an easy excuse to say you need to devour your foes."

"Interesting," she replied.

"I have not encountered the Beast before."

"It's Epic, so getting it to appear may take a while if you don't have a lot of Luck."

"How many Points do you think we will get from this Stage?" she asked.

"A lot," he replied.

"Now, come on, we've got a lot of work to do before the sun comes up."

"Why?"

"The Matriarch's coven will return eventually, and we want to make sure they're properly welcomed. I still sense a few human melodies on the island, so we can collect their materials after harvesting the ones in the castle. It'll give you a chance to try out the Fiend Tongue as well." Kat looked across the floor to where Adam had crushed two of the guards with his raiment during the fight. Then she looked back at him.

"I cannot wait," she said with a deadpan that made Adam laugh.