“Are we there yet?” Bekka grumbled.
She was sprawled out atop Lisa’s back with the rest of the wives as the group traveled toward the location of Emperium’s hideout.
Flying silently behind them were 1,000 of the rabisu led by Stheno who showed no signs of weariness from flying nonstop for over two days.
“This is your twelfth time asking that, Bekka. Just be patient and enjoy riding on Lisa’s lovely back” Lailah offered.
She was actually enjoying this small vacation and the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair made her a bit envious of the members of her family who had wings.
Lisa blushed when she heard Lailah refer to her monstrous body as lovely. It was always nice to know that her family accepted her, no matter what form she was in.
“But I wanna kill stuff!” Bekka complained.
“At times like this, it’s really hard to believe the stories about you being afraid of blood.” Valerie remembered scenes of her furry friend’s blood soaked rampages and found herself unable to see how such a drastic change was possible.
Bekka could only scratch her cheek shyly. “D-Don’t bring up such embarrassing things!”
The girls laughed, enjoying each others company and forgetting for a moment about the melancholy they felt from being away from the rest of their family.
Valerie suddenly took a look at Bekka and remembered a question that she had yet never found the time to ask.
“I’m curious, why do you look like that now?”
After evolving, Bekka had undergone a fairly drastic transformation that caused her to now resemble a more normal beastkin.
Normally, evolving does not cause such drastic physical alterations so it was a bit strange to see her like this.
Bekka looked down at her soft caramel skin and dark brown fur as if she still couldn’t believe they were hers.
“My mother taught me how to suppress her bloodline so that those who hunt abyss walkers would not be able to find me.”
After traveling to Tehom, Bekka’s soul was permanently stained with it’s natural chaotic energy.
That stain would travel through her soul and be transmitted to her real body, acting as a kind of beacon for those that Karliah had called ‘ the hunters’.
Through the suppression of her mother’s bloodline, she was able to hide her heritage and therefore guarantee her safety.
If the girls had any sort of concern over Bekka’s words, they certainly did not show it.
It was not that they did not care, it was more like they were becoming rather used to the idea of being hunted and adding another group to their list of pursuers would hardly change anything.
In the end, they would all meet the same bloody fate.
“There!”
Valerie suddenly pointed to a large fortress that was embedded on the side of a mountain.
“Lailah.”
“Got it.” The animus witch snapped her fingers and soon she and her family were no longer visible to the naked eye.
Evolution had done wonders for Lailah’s mana capacity and magical talent.
Camouflaging a group of over 1,000 was almost as easy as breathing.
“Alright!” Bekka excitedly stood up and began flexing her powerful muscles. “Who’s taking the lead on this one?”
Naturally all eyes drifted towards Valerie as this was her unfinished business.
However, the hybrid woman seemed like she truly was not expecting to be placed in charge of this operation.
“Girls… I only just learned how to fight. I don’t think that I should be the one leading an operation like this..”
“Well what were you going to do if you came here alone? Just go in all wild and unfocused?” Lailah asked.
Valerie turned her head to the side and acted like she suddenly found something really interesting about Lisa’s scales.
“Val… you are perfectly capable of leading us. This is your past to bury, no one but you should hold the shovel.” Even though Lailah was one of the youngest in the group, she consistently displayed a level of wisdom one would expect from the first wife of a king.
She had come quite a long way from that girl in Barbello who was never allowed to have a voice.
Lailah stood up and walked over to Valerie and directed her attention to the small army of demons behind her as well as the family she was surrounded by.
“All of us are here to help you. Simply tell us what must be done, and we will do it without question.”
Abaddon had already made himself incredibly clear.
The will of his wives was his will as as well. Therefore his army would never even consider hesitating to carry out their orders.
Valerie looked at the determined looking demons behind her and she felt the faintest bit of confidence begin to swell up from within.
“Okay… thank you all for trusting me with this.” She said sincerely.
Feeling like she could not let her family and subordinates down, Valerie began concocting a plan in her head.
“There are innocents inside so that means we can’t just destroy the entire fortress outright. Sorry, Bekka.”
The beastkin’s fluffy ears drooped a bit.
She wanted to play with her new black hole power that her husband gave her!
Valerie ignored her disappointment and then went on to give a very detailed and well thought out plan.
There was a loading dock in the back that Valerie had escaped from so many years ago and that was where she was planning on having the army attack.
‘Even though she said she didn’t want to lead, she’s really a natural.’ Lisa and Lailah both listened to Valerie’s explanation with proud smirks.
Once the explanation was out of the way, Valerie prepared to guide Lisa towards the loading dock.
“Val?” Bekka suddenly said.
“Hm?” Inwardly, she became a bit worried that she may have made a mistake and her plan was stupid after all.
Luckily, that wasn’t it.𝑜𝚟𝔩xt.𝒞𝐌
Bekka merely pointed to the ground below where some very familiar faces were coming out of the massive fortress.
–
“Are you certain that yo do not mind us keeping them?” A human man asked.
He was tall with fair skin and short black hair with a massive scar running directly down the center of his face. on his body he wore dark clothes with a symbol on the back that signified his organization as well as his rank.
The man he was conversing with was Canis Osa. Bekka’s father and the leader of the Osa tribe.
Several months ago, this was the man that he had contracted as head of security and as a ‘collector.’
He and his tribe were responsible for bringing a great many demihumans to this place and preventing any sort of rebellion or escape.
If Canis felt any sort of guilt for selling out his own kind, he certainly did not show it.
As far as he was concerned, only the survival of the tribe mattered.
Everything else was utterly inconsequential.
“Keep them.” he growled.
The man who had hired him was named Zibel and he was giving his employee a strange look. “Do you want to tell me why you suddenly offered up every woman in your tribe like this? They are fine specimens and I’m more than happy to have them but this is all a bit strange.”
At the mention of the women, Canis and the other fifty warriors behind him growled in synchronicity, showing that this decision came with a great deal of anger.
“What use do we have for disrespectful bitches that do not know their place?” Ever since the women of the Osa tribe had seen Abaddon, they had refused to sleep with any of the men.
They suddenly found them unsatisfactory and the idea of spending the night with them was almost enough to make them vomit.
The men of the tribe finally had enough and decided to sell their wives and daughters off to teach them a good lesson.
There were still a few children left who had yet to come of age so for now it seemed like the men were going to be spending quite a bit of time within brothels.
‘I wish I could find a succubus somewhere. But from what I hear they are damn near extinct!’ Canis thought in frustration.
“Well.. it makes me no difference either way.” Zibel finally gave up asking questions and puled out a large coin purse that was stuffed with gold.
Handing it over to Canis, he soon returned his focus to matters that actually concerned him. “So, when can I expect the next delivery?”
Canis prepared to answer, yet all of a sudden the feeling that he was being watched began to plague his mind.
He stared up into the sky a fair distance away and did not notice anything strange, yet his senses had never been wrong before.
Unsheathing his sword, he sent four slashes of blade energy into the sky a fair distance away.
There was a shimmer of light before the illusion disappeared and all could see a massive dragon leading an army of demons.
“What the fuck?”
“Where the hell did they come from?!”
“It doesn’t matter, bring them down!”
With their cover blown and their plan reduced to nothing, Valerie sighed a bit before slinging her hammer over her shoulder.
If she’d learned nothing in her time with her family, it was how to improvise.
“The enemy has spotted us, prepare for battle!”