Abaddon had gone through all of the areas that he’d destroyed with his death magic and set them ablaze with his flames.
While he wasn’t doing this to simply set the forest on fire, it was necessary to prevent the creation of more locusts.
By burning up the areas affected by his death magic he was effectively erasing all traces of it, ensuring that no more flies would suddenly evolve.
Suddenly introducing a new member into the animal kingdom would surely have disastrous consequences, so it was absolutely vital that he avoided making more for now.
Currently, their numbers were around 750 and he had already begun to see some potential problems.
For starters, the locusts were extremely aggressive.
The slightest sound was met with fierce growls, and the stingers on the tips of their tails began to release a nauseating neurotoxin.
In addition, the beasts had a rather large appetite.
An entire stone furred bear would be attacked and devoured in an instant before the locust let out a satisfied burp and continued on it’s merry way.
However, they showed that they were more than capable of listening to reason.
If Abaddon ever gave a command, the beasts would enact it out expertly and return expecting praise in the end.
They seemed to have an abundance of energy and seemed happiest whenever they were either eating or following Abaddon.
“The smoke is coming from this way!”
“Put the fire out, quickly!”
“Those with a water and earth affinity, to the front!”
Abaddon’s ears suddenly picked up on the sound of another large group moving towards his position.
But unlike before, he knew exactly who these newcomers were.
“Do not attack.” Abaddon warned the locusts.
Strangely, the beasts did not seem to be interested in attacking anyway and instead seemed to be curious about the approaching individuals.
Bursting through the clearing of trees was the vampire lord Kristina.
Her well-toned and muscular body was no longer concealed beneath the thick black robes she always wore, and she currently had on a simple black training shirt with dark grey pants and combat boots.
Trailing behind her were around 300 men and women who Abaddon assumed were from the army.
When Kristina’s eyes fell on a tall man wearing a black combat outfit and with his blood red hair tied in a ponytail, her heart briefly began to thump madly before she fell to one knee in greeting.
“Kristina pays her respects to the red king.”
Before Abaddon could respond, the rest of the soldiers finally caught sight of the strange beasts that were standing around motionlessly.
“What the hell are those things!?”
“M-Monsters…”
“Where the hell did these things come from!?”
The sounds of weapons being unsheathed and spells powering up filled the air as the vampires prepared for what they believed to be an inevitable collision.
However, a terrible pressure suddenly assailed their bodies and they were immediately forced onto their knees.
“Are you lot blind?! You would dare stand in front of our king without paying him the proper greetings?” Kristina’s eyes were burning brightly with a powerful rage and she felt like she was going to snap at any moment.
How could her soldiers dare to look so undisciplined in front of their king?!
This was blasphemy of the highest degree!
“B-But the monsters…!”
BANG!
Suddenly, the man who’d spoken had his head blown apart like a watermelon as Kristina increased the pressure on it 100-fold.
“Are you all content to continue embarrassing me like this…?” Kristina asked menacingly.
She still hadn’t lifted her head and was kneeling in front of Abaddon, but every one of her soldiers felt like she was standing over them directly.
“Open your fucking eyes. If our king is surrounded by these creatures and is completely unharmed then he must be their creator!”
Suddenly it seemed as though these vampires had realized their mistake and immediately banged their heads on the ground.
“PLEASE FORGIVE US, KING ABADDON!”
Truth be told, Abaddon understood their reactions.
Any normal person would react just as they did if they were seeing the locusts for the first time.
They were large, frightening, brand new creatures that were utterly unlike anything they had ever seen before.
He almost told them they had nothing to apologize for.
But as a new king, Abaddon had to maintain a certain image among the people and his subordinates and thus, he said nothing instead.
Walking over to Kristina, he hovered over her briefly without uttering a single word.
The vampire lord believed that she was about to be punished for failing to educate her men properly, and her whole body trembled as she remembered her king’s ability to imbue the purest most primal fear within anyone he chose.
She did not want to feel like that again.
There was very little that was more terrifying than the feeling of utter helplessness she got from interacting with the red king, and she prayed with all her might that he might be lenient.
“Kristina.”
“Y-Yes, my king?”
“I must admit, you’ve impressed me a fair amount today. Not only were you unfazed by the locusts, but you were even able to deduce that they were my creations as well.”
Abaddon gave a mental command and the flames that were burning up the last of the dead forest suddenly ceased and the area was filled with darkness once more.
Kristina let out a silent sigh of relief just before her whole body tensed up from the sudden compliment.
It was worth noting that the vampire had a bit of a praise kink and the words of her king served to excite her beyond belief.
‘My king, y-you shouldn’t say things like that so suddenly!’ She yelled internally.
It seemed like she had either forgotten or simply did not care that Abaddon could read her thoughts and he unfortunately heard all of her inner degeneracy.
“I-I assure you that I have done nothing worth such praise! I was merely observing what was in front of me.” Kristina said shyly.
“That may be the case but… Oh?”
At that moment, one of the locusts walked forward and began nuzzling against Kristina’s face. 𝒪𝚟xt.𝒞𝗈
This caused Abaddon to raise a brow in curiosity.
He had told the nightmarish beasts not to attack the approaching party, but he said nothing about acting friendly with them.
So far, the beasts had shown that they did not like any form of life other than him.
So why was it suddenly behaving differently?
“My king… may I ask what exactly these things are?” Kristina asked shakily as the horrifying creature brushed against her face.
Despite how cute the beast was behaving, she still had to admit that they were still downright frightening.
‘D-Don’t tell me that it’s sniffing me to see if I’m edible!?’ Kristina wondered.
“These are locusts I’ve created through my magic. I’m still studying them, but you can rest assured that they won’t hurt you. They actually seem to like you quite a bit.”
As if to prove his point, the locusts began walking towards various vampires within the crowd and sniffing them out curiously.
“He really created them?”
“I suppose if anybody was capable of such a thing it would be the king…”
“They’re actually sort of cute… like murder horses!”
“You’re a sick individual.”
One by one the vampires and the locusts were both investigating each other, and seemingly getting along fine.
Suddenly, it was as if a switch went off in Abaddon’s brain and he realized why the locusts were not aggressive.
Everyone here had consumed his blood and thus, they were deemed as a non threat to the normally combative beasts.
The dragon let out a huge sigh of relief.
On this continent, around seventy percent of vampires had drank Abaddon’s blood on the day of his coronation.
They were still in the process of distributing his blood to any who were unable to attend and within a month, it was expected that every vampire in Upyr would have tasted the blood of the new king and become demonic hybrids with the ability to walk in the daylight.
It was good to know that his own creations would not go around attacking and killing citizens.
Now if he could figure out a way to increase their potential food supply and instructed them not to over hunt, he would be free to make more of them without worry.
Suddenly, he remembered the words of one of the soldiers and an idea flashed into his brain.
He had a vision of a powerful and terrifying army clad in black armor and riding these monstrous beasts like they were normal horses.
Given time, resources, and training, his army would be more formidable than even that of Antares.
But before he got too excited, he had to see if there was a true possibility for companionship.
“If you like, you’re free to take one of them as a steed.” He told the soldiers.” They can be a bit aggressive to those who have not taken my blood but as for anyone else, they are relatively docile.”
Kristina was the first to show signs of surprise and looked back and forth between the locust at her side and her king.
She looked like she was having trouble accepting the sudden gift but one long lick from the beast at her side seemingly made the decision for her. “A-Alright, my king. Thank you so much for your generosity.”
All 300 members of this private army gratefully accepted Abaddon’s offer of a locust.
While some did it out of genuine interest and curiosity for the beasts, a few felt that if they denied the king’s generous offer of a mount, they would face the hellish wrath of grand marshall Kristina.
When all vampires were getting used to sitting on the backs of their new mounts, Abaddon finally asked his lord about their reason for being out here.
“Well this lot is intended to be the private military force of yourself and the royal family but I found their prowess to be… rather lacking.” Kristina said disdainfully.
“As such, I am taking them to a special location for some intensive training where I can turn them into warriors who are worthy to serve both you and your family, my king.”
Abaddon had to admit he found this to be intriguing.
After thinking about it for a moment and nodding, he made up his mind.
“I will accompany you. I wish to see their efforts with my own eyes.”
Kristina had earned the approval of Seras, Bekka, Lusamine, and even Audrina to continue to hold her position as grand marshall.
While he trusted her ability to whip these men into shape, if they were going to be the private army of himself and his family, their were certain uncompromisable qualities that he was looking for.
Kristina nodded furiusly as she realized that Abaddon would be supervising this exercise and as such, she could not afford to disgrace herself.
“MEN, ONWARDS TOWARDS THE BURNING SANDS!”