The troll commander was dead!
He had died to his own blood.
Due to the over-exhaustion of his lightning powers, he had lost the blessing of the Feathered God. Meanwhile, the bloodline power that Mary had injected into his body with the previous attack was the true key to the Reversed Bloodflow in his body.
The trolls might be able to survive after losing their heart, but when a backflow of blood attacked the brain, even a troll as powerful as himself would die instantly. No troll could possibly survive two of their core organs being destroyed.
As for the mysterious will that had descended on the troll commander’s body? It dispersed silently without a chance to unleash its power due to the sudden death of its host.
In truth, Mary had overestimated the Feathered God.
Given the power demonstrated by the troll commander earlier, he had not completed a ‘god summoning’ at all. It was only the inferior ‘projection’ summoning. The Feathered God had responded to the troll commander’s prayer and projected a part of its power through the channel of faith onto him. In doing so, it had managed to complete a transfer of power.
Just in terms of the level of power, ‘descent’ would undoubtedly transfer a more complete power. It would even bring along a portion of the god’s consciousness. However, ‘projection’ was only the transfer of power. There was no consciousness involved. Naturally, this meant that projection would not provide the believer with special divine abilities.
However, the Feathered God seemed to have developed an interest in this battle. It had silently watched Mary’s every action through the channels of faith.
After all, there were no vampires in Seawoods Plane!
Consequently, Mary’s ability to absorb blood and regenerate had piqued its interest.
It didn’t really care for the tiny amount of origin power it had lost due to the troll commander.
Now that Mary had won the challenge for glory, she had won everything that belonged to the opponent. When she dragged the troll commander’s bloody body and his heavy spear into the forest, the entire troll camp remained utterly silent.
All the troll warriors looked on in silence. They didn’t roar, and they didn’t flare up in anger. When they looked at Mary’s slender back, there was a trace of fear and respect in their eyes.
Troll Commander Ka’no could be considered one of the strongest troll warriors in Seawoods Plane. If even he could not defeat that terrifying vampire, who among the remaining warriors could defeat the invaders?
This challenge for glory instantly shattered the will and morale of the troll army.
Nightfall.
Daylight had yet to break, yet the troll army had retreated without a word.
They had brought along their infected companions. It was a tradition of the trolls that they would never easily abandon their companions.
Naturally, Mary couldn’t be happier to see this!
The trolls had not suffered enough from the plague. Perhaps they believed that the voodoo doctors in the capital could cure the plague or simply believed too strongly in their serpentine god.
Either way, they brought a group of troll warriors infected with a terrifying plague into the very heart of their empire. Mary and the others could not be happier to see this!
Mary sent out a group of blood servants to follow after the troll army, while she and her subordinates hid in the forest and examined the troll commander’s corpse.
With the trolls’ clumsy personalities and muscle-brains, they clearly didn’t realize that the corpse of the troll commander they had left behind wasn’t the only thing they had left for Mary. After all, the body itself contained traces of the Feathered God’s aura.
Even Mary had a hard time believing that the trolls had so quickly left such a precious spoil of war in her hands.
She and her most trusted subordinates found a well-hidden spot in the forest and drew a massive array around them. After two days and three nights, they finally managed to extract every last drop of blood from the troll commander’s body.
An adept of any other attribute would not have been able to accomplish such a feat. After two days and three nights, the body would already have rotted, and the blood would have curdled. All of the essence contained within the blood would also be gone.
However, all the adepts were vampires that excelled at blood magic. Preserving blood activity and ensuring the essence of its power wasn’t lost was child’s play to them.
After extracting all the blood, they naturally used the array to further draw out the remnants of the Feathered God’s power.
As the giant blob of blood above the array started to shrink in size, an unusual fragrance spread through the forest. The eyes of every vampire that smelled this turned red, and saliva trickled down their mouths.
Even the Second Grade vampires personally promoted by Mary behaved in this manner.
They looked upon the blood in the air as if they were looking upon their very life and future. Their greedy, thirsty, reckless gazes burned so furiously with desire it almost seemed like their gazes alone could burn everything to ashes.
They could sense that the blood contained not only incredibly pure blood essence but also a mysterious, indescribable energy. Any vampire here would be able to accumulate enough energy to advance to Third Grade by devouring the blood.
Of course, as Mary’s direct subordinates, the still required Mary’s approval to be able to advance.
It wasn’t just the subordinates. Even Mary had to use most of her Spirit to suppress the instinct thrashing about in her heart when she stared at the blood. It was the only way she could stop herself from lunging forward and feasting.
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However, though the blood could allow any First or Second Grade vampire to advance to Third Grade, it still could not help Mary advance from peak Third Grade to Fourth Grade. At the very best, it would widen and refine Mary’s reserve of blood energy, but it could not cause a qualitative change in her powers.
Of course, if all of the blood here was the blood of the Feathered God, there was a chance that it could propel Mary to Fourth Grade.
That was more than enough to demonstrate how difficult it was to advance from Third Grade to Fourth Grade!
It was important to note that in most planes, creatures below First Grade were considered mortals. Only beings above First Grade were supernatural beings. However, even among supernatural beings, Fourth Grade was a distinct threshold.
Third Grade could be considered the limit of supernatural creatures, while Fourth Grade was the start of ascension towards godhood.
In the World of Gods, every god started at the minimum of beginner Fifth Grade. Every creature of Fourth Grade was then known as a demi-god. Once you had advanced to Fourth Grade, half of your body and soul would have become divine.
Demi-gods of the World of Gods could potentially obtain an immortal soul if they were willing to compromise with the planar consciousness and offer up a portion of their souls.
Demi-gods with immortal souls hardly ever died.
Even if they were killed by enemies, their souls would reform under the blessing of the planar consciousness with the passage of time. They would then be reborn through a reincarnated body.
Fourth Grade adepts of the World of Adepts did not have such a premium treatment.
However, the adepts’ magic system provided them with plenty of means to escape death. For instance: life-concealing magic, soul-escape magic, substitution dolls, and many other techniques. However, these spells could only be used on adepts who were killed by enemies. Should an adept’s origin lifespan be exhausted, they could not be saved no matter what magic they employed.
Consequently, when Mary sensed that the unusual energy in the blood was crucial to her advancement, she ordered the extraction of the energy at all costs.
After over twenty days in the forest, the vampires had finally accomplished this task.
When the vampires finally set out again and moved towards the troll empire based on the marks left behind by the blood servants, Mary had in her possession a light blue crystal the size of a bean.
It was an unusual power crystal. It had lost all blood activity, yet it had a power that could not be rivaled by blood crystals or magical crystals. If Greem were here, he would have been able to tell Mary that this was a strange dual-attribute crystal that contained the powers of lightning and faith.
The most significant value of the crystal wasn’t the energy contained within, but the fragment of the power of the lightning laws!
Without the existence of the power of faith, the lightning laws would not be able to manifest, let alone solidify in such an unusual form. If Mary could bring it back to the World of Adepts, the elementium adepts that practiced lightning magic would be willing to purchase it at the price of a Fourth Grade item.
In the World of Adepts, a Fourth Grade item’s starting price was around two to three million crystals!
Mary rubbed the crystal between her fingers. Finally, she resisted the urge to swallow it.
The power in the crystal was not sufficient for her to advance to Fourth Grade.
Finding a way to extract even more divine blood from the source of this crystal was her best choice!
After understanding this, Mary waved her hand and summoned Vanlier. The two of them started discussing their plans.
As they continued to talk, a grander, more dangerous plan quickly began to present itself.
…………
World of Adepts, Fire Throne.
The fifth level of the tower.
Greem stood in front of a sizeable magical mirror, communicating remotely with Alice.
Alice had been the one to initiate this meeting, which was what surprised Greem.
Ever since Alice had advanced to Fourth Grade, she and her Fate Witches began to hold more diplomatic weight in the Witch Council.
For the sake of keeping the Fate Witches within the Northern Witches, all of the witch branches changed their attitude of cold avoidance. They started to express their goodwill towards Alice as much as possible.
In fact, they didn’t even let Alice reject their proposal to hold a grand advancement celebration in Werning City for her.
All of the witch leaders would be attending, as well all of the high-grade witches. They intended to celebrate, in high fashion, the return of the Fate branch.
Naturally, Alice couldn’t reject such an offer!
Even though she didn’t like to be dragged along like this, she could only accept the idea for the sake of the Fate branch.
Most of the time, the Fate Witches were like little pets of the planar consciousness.
They could see, hear, and understand so many secrets of Fate, but its powers controlled them. They could not make any decision freely without consequence.
Flowing down the river of history, having a grasp over the beat of Fate.
It might all sound nice, but when you were personally drowning in the river, there weren’t very many things that you could decide with your own will.