POWER

Chapter 9

"That was close" Aisha told Rose and the others whilst still carrying the woman on her shoulder as they walked behind the demon vampires with Tyral and Freya. "Do they know where they're going?" Rose asked Freya about the demon vampires in front of them. "We have scouts positioned in front of them that know the way to our other camp so they'll be fine" Freya replied her. "I take it since I didn't see the other two that were with Edwin you guys took care of them but why did you bring her along?" Rose asked pointing to the unconscious woman who was on Aisha's shoulder. "It seems Elina didn't kill her and instead is suppressing her soul's control on her body" Eve told her and Rose looked down. "If only that was the case with Edwin" she said looking back at the woman. "You......took care of him?" Eve asked her and she nodded with a tear falling out of her eye but she quickly wiped it away. "I think he would be happy knowing that you did what had to be done" Eve said touching her shoulder and Rose looked at her. "I know" she said smiling."But it was strange though, he was weaker than the last time we fought"she told them. "Maybe it's just cause you got stronger" Aisha told her. "Ya, maybe" she said as they reached the exit of the tunnel and found themselves walking out of the side of a mountain above ground and into the forest. "Aren't we out in the open here?" Arthur asked Freya who walked towards the side of the mountain and hit it making it shimmer including a large part of the forest that was around them. "An illusion barrier we set up a long time ago in case our camp ever got compromised" she replied him before watching the people settle down to rest. She then walked to the side of the tunnel they came out from and looked around the ground until she found a ball of aura that was hidden by a fake rock. "We're gonna have to blow up the tunnel so that they can't find us if they find a way to get through the entrance you blocked" she told them before pouring black aura into the ball of aura and the ground shook as they heard explosions from underneath them. "If you wouldn't mind" she said looking at Eve whilst signaling to the tunnel and Eve nodded before forming a barrier infront if it as it exploded spreading a wave of dust that her barrier kept in. She then made the barrier disappear as a few rocks fell down and they looked at the now blocked tunnel that still had some dust coming out of it. "I'm pretty sure the vampires are gonna start extending their searches and making them more thorough than before so we can't stay here for long" she said walking as they followed her whilst passing by the people that watched them for a while. "This increases the risk of them getting to you guys and the symbol" she told them walking to some demon vampires that were armoured and surrounded a metallic chest. They moved out of her way and she kneeled down next to it before biting her thumb hard using one of her fangs making it bleed and putting the blood on the lock of the chest. The chest began vibrating for a while and stopped before opening itself revealing the symbol floating inside of it. "Take it and go" she said putting the symbol in her hand and giving it to Rose who took out and opened her book allowing it to go in. She looked at the symbol in the book for a while before shaking her head. "No" she said closing the book and putting it back in her bag. "Not this again" Freya said and stood up looking at Rose. "If you guys don't go now the vampires who sided with us and sacrificed their lives to get this symbol so as to not allow Diadra to get to your world would have done it for nothing"

"And what would happen to you guys?"

"Our fates were already sealed when Diadra took the throne but us knowing that we at least were able to save a world makes it worth it" she told her but then they heard growling. "Seems like someone is waking up" Aisha said taking the woman off her shoulder and placing her on the ground as she opened her eyes and looked around before snarling at them angrily and tried to break free from the chains."Eve" Arthur said signalling to the woman and Eve kneeled down next to her and held her head. Her eyes started glowing as aura emitted out of her hands and spread across her body before she started moving her body vigorously trying to get Eve's hands off her. "Hold her" Eve told the others keeping her hands on her head and Aisha with the help of Rose kept her still as Eve continued pouring aura onto her. She roared loudly before falling unconscious with dark purple aura emitting out of her whilst being surrounded by blue aura that turned into a ball and continued surrounding the dark purple aura which moved around violently. "I got it" Rose said with her eyes glowing as she raised her hand to pour her aura into the ball which after a while exploded. The woman slowly opened her eyes that were no longer dark purple but black and she looked around. "Where.....where am I?" she asked them before looking at the chains that still bounded her. Arthur waved his hand as the chains dispersed and Eve whose eyes stopped glowing helped her up."Do you know who you are?" Eve asked her and she nodded. "What's the last thing you can remember?" Rose asked her and she looked around again before her eyes widened. "We....we had just found out we were the last standing kingdom after the others got destroyed but before we could fully prepare ourselves we were attacked by an army of undead including undead warriors from other kingdoms" she told them. "Wait you're saying all the kingdoms have been defeated!?" Aisha asked her and she nodded."We tried our best to fight back but they were too powerful for us to handle and when one of the undead was about to kill me they stopped and instead bound my hands and knocked me out" she continued. "When I woke I was bound to a metal table in a room with a man pouring aura into my head and then......and then....." she started stuttering and stopped as she held her head in pain and tears fell from her eyes."Are you ok?" Eve asked and felt her shaking before covering her in her aura again and she calmed down. "Better?" she asked the woman who nodded. "When I tried remembering what happened in that room I felt an overwhelming wave of pain and fear come over me" she told them whilst panting. "Whatever method he must have used to surpress your soul might have traumatized it" Arthur told her . "She needs to get some rest" Eve told them and Tyral nodded. "I'll take her to a place she can" he said helping the woman to walk as he took her away. "I'm sorry to hear about your world" Freya said and Rose looked at her. "It's ok, we should've expected Elina to have moved on the other kingdoms already" Rose said. "But now we don't have anything to lose anymore"

"But she can still go to other human inhabited worlds with the power of the symbol if she gets it"

"She won't",Rose looked at her sternly," I'm not gonna leave this world until we defeat her and free your people from the fate you've decided for yourselves"Rose told her making her frown but when she was about to speak again she felt someone touch her shoulder from behind. "I don't think she's gonna change her mind" an old demon vampire said appearing next to her and she looked at him. "But elder....."" You know if you fail all other human inhabited worlds are going to be in danger ?" he asked Rose interrupting Freya who kept quiet. "Every world is already in danger but I can't stand by knowing that I abandoned a world I was on when there was a chance I could help it"she replied the elder and he smiled. "I think its best to just allow them to help us" he said looking at Freya who shook her head. "But....."" Yes I know the consequences if we fail but when there is even a small glimmer of hope, we can do what seems to be impossible"he told her interrupting her before he walked away. Freya looked at them for while before she sighed. "If we fail....."" Can you stop f*****g saying that cause we won't " Rose interrupted her angrily. "Fine, we'll discuss the battle plans later tonight" she told them annoyed and walked away. "She really doesn't believe we can do this does she?" Aisha asked them as they watched her. "Ya well we'll show her we can" Rose replied........

"You let the half breeds and humans get away without even so much as capturing or killing either one, why is that Alora?" Diadra asked Alora who was kneeling on one knee in front of her as she sat on a throne that was decorated with different shaped skulls and dry blood. "The half breeds were already evacuating when we got there and the humans fended off my forces before they both escaped and made us unable to follow them by completely destroying the tunnel they went through" Alora told her and Diadra frowned. "That's still not an excuse for not being able to catch or kill anyone" Diadra told her standing. "If you're unable to catch or kill mere humans and furthermore be held back by them then what's the need for you?" she asked walking towards Alora." The humans were quite skilled and formidable "Alora told her but Diadra shook her head. " You're making this worse for yourself" she told her as her eyes started glowing. "Cause if they were that formidable then that means their blood would have tasted exquisite but you still let them get away"

"I won't fail you again" Alora said as Diadra stood in front of her. "I know you won't but you know I can't leave you unpunished for failure, that's not how I do things around here" she told her as she held her face and grabbed one of her eyes before pulling it out slowly. Alora held in the pain as she pulled it out before covering her empty eye socket that was flowing out blood with her hand and Diadra took her other hand and placed the eye she pulled out on it. "I would've taken out both your eyes but since you've been my general for so long I'll allow you to make amends for your failure" she said smiling at her before walking back towards her throne. "Fail me again and I can promise you you're next punishment will make you exceed the limits of pain"she warned her as she sat down...........

Rose lay on the ground alone looking at the night sky that still had the red moon. "Mind if I join you?" she heard someone ask and the elder from earlier put his face in front of hers." Of course" Rose said sitting up straight as the elder also sat down and they both looked at the night sky. "Thank you for helping us convince Freya to let us help you and the people" Rose told him a while later and he chuckled.

"It was my pleasure"

"Why did you help us convince her anyway?"

"Because you remind me of someone from a long time ago " he told her and she looked at him confused."Did you know many years ago when this world was asked to join in the war against Elina we had initially refused?"

"What, why?"

"Because we thought it was pointless to join forces with other worlds and it would be better if we defended our world by ourselves"

"What then changed your mind?"

"A female human who had a similar attitude like yours refused to leave our world and convinced us it was better to fight as one and not separated"

"It sounds like something I would've done also" Rose said smirking.

"That same woman led us to victory by defeating Elina with the sacrifice of her own life" the elder said and looked at Rose. "I believe you can save us from this fate we have chosen for ourselves"

"I won't fail you" Rose told him making him smile as he looked back at the sky."If I may ask how come you guys can use dark power?"

"I'm not quite sure myself but in a legend it says our world was accidentally placed next to the dark world of power when it was first created and some of the power from that world washed over our world before we we were placed in our correct place"

"Its time to discuss our plan of attack" they heard someone say behind them and they turned around to see it was Freya. Rose nodded as she stood and looked at the elder. "Will be seeing you soon I hope" Rose said smiling at him before walking away with Freya to Eve and the others who were sitting around a fire far away from the people. "How are you feeling now ummm, now that I think about it I never got your name" Rose said to the woman who was also amongst them as she and Freya sat down. "My name is Malle and I'm doing much better thank you" she told Rose. "She insisted on helping us with this fight" Eve said to Rose who nodded. "Well we could use more help anyway" Rose said smiling at Malle. "Now time to get into this, how many of your people are battle ready?" Rose asked Freya.

"Most of our people are but compared to Diadra's army they're not a lot"

"Do vampires retain the strength they gain from the blood they drink from humans?" Arthur asked her.

"Since we don't drink human blood we had to conduct tests to see if that theory was true but it seems like its not because several years later after the symbol was stolen and given to us we noticed that some of the vampires we killed were weaker than usual"

"Meaning she must be feeding the blood she has left to a few vampires now" Rose said thinking.

"Why didn't you fight back when you saw they were getting weaker?" Malle asked her.

"Because the weak ones were now moving in packs with stronger vampires amongst them to account for their decrease in strength making it harder for us to kill them"Tyral replied her.

"If the vampires were to discover where we are how much of her army do you think she's gonna send?" Rose asked her.

"Alora would lead half of them to us, why?"Freya asked her and she smiled.

"I think I have an idea on how to reduce their army's number but for now let's discuss what we're going to do after that"........

The following day a group of vampires moved around the forest searching for their whereabouts. "We've been searching since last night and still we've got nothing" one of the vampires said complaining to the others. "You want to go back and tell Alora we haven't found anything after what we heard Diadra had done to her?" another vampire asked and the one who spoke kept quiet. "Ya that's what I thought"

Suddenly one of them was shot in the head by a bolt of green aura. "Where did that come from!?" one of them asked as they got close to each other and looked around. Another bolt was shot at them but one of the vampires caught it preventing it from hitting another vampire which was its intended target before being shot in the head instead by another bolt of aura. "Found you" the vampire that was saved said flying towards where the bolt had come from before being shot in the head by an arrow from another direction. Rose flew down from the sky covered in red aura and grabbed one of the remaining four vampires before crashing with them to the ground. The rest of the vampires looked down at her and were but to fly towards her but were shot through by a barrage of aura bolts. "Calm the f**k down" Rose told the vampire she held by the neck as it tried to claw her and break free from her strong grip. "Watch out" Eve said walking out from within the forest as she created a barrier that stopped the bodies of the other vampires from falling on Rose and moved them before dropping them some distance away. "I must say how you shot that arrow from afar was impressive" Arthur told Mella as they also appeared from the within the forest and walked towards Eve and Rose. "Thanks but it would've had aura to make it stronger if the bow I was given by my kingdom that infused my arrows with aura was still here" she told him and he remembered the bow he destroyed during their fight. "I'm sorry I destroyed it" he apologized to her and she shrugged."It doesn't matter you had to do what you had to do" she told him as they reached Eve and Rose.Rose hit the vampire on a tree hard as it continued struggling against her. "You know what he won't listen, Arthur" she said as Arthur raised his hand with his hand crossbow appearing on it and shot a bolt at the vampire's head which Rose caught an inch away from its eye. "The next one I won't catch " she warned him with Arthur getting ready to shoot another one and he calmed down before keeping quiet. "Good" she said as Arthur lowered his hand with the hand crossbow disappearing. "What do you want from me?" the vampire asked her. "We're going to show you where we and the half breeds are staying and you're going to go tell Alora" she told him and he smiled.

"You know she's gonna know you're planning something if I tell her what conspired here"

"Ohh you're gonna tell her we ambushed you alright but you managed to hide during our attack and followed us back to where we were hididng"

"And what if I refuse"

"We'll just kill you and look for another one whose willing to cooperate" she told him holding his neck tighter. "Also you think Alora's gonna let you live after you tell her what really happened here?" she asked him and he looked at her.......