It had taken more time than expected, but eventually the soldiers were able to complete the arduous task of moving through the burning sands on their hands and knees.
Abaddon thought a few quitters might emerge when a strong gust of wind blew sand onto their face or torsos but there were none among them who were so weak.
In fact, it was as if they no longer even noticed the pain as they soundlessly crawled for ten miles.
When their milestone was reached, Kristina excitedly stood up and energetically stretched her ripped body.
“Phase one of training is over! Rise up everyone!”
The vampires seemed like they couldn’t stand up fast enough and now only their feet were experiencing the hellish burn that came from the sand.
In the sky, the locusts flying overhead sent out happy noises of congratulation to their riders and masters below.
Even if they tried not to show it, such praise was enough to put small smiles on their faces.
But Kristina’s next words immediately wiped away that building sense of accomplishment.
“Phase two begins now! You all are free to come at me as many as you want for the next hour! If I knock you down and you are unable to get up, then you fail by default!”
Despite her quiet and sometimes shy disposition, Kristina was well known to be a brutal monster.
There were quite a few stories about vampires who were forced to spar with her dying on accident or simply quitting from military life altogether.
This was without a doubt the worst case scenario.
The soldiers were wondering if it was possible for their future to look any more grim, but unexpected words from Abaddon quickly proved that they could.
“You’ll have to forgive me Kristina, but I think I’m going to have you sit on the sidelines for this. I want to be the one to test them.”
“Uwah?” Kristina made the same disappointed noise that Mira made whenever she realized she’d eaten all of her cookies.
She was really looking forward to beati- I mean testing the mettle of these recruits herself but if her king said that he wished to test them on his own, there was very little that she could say in complaint.
“Very well, my king. I shall leave them in your capable hands.”
Abaddon stepped out in front of the crowd and was immediately met with nervous glances and objections.
“My king… Even if you say it’s okay we could never…”
“My king, how could you ever expect us to raise a hand against you?”
“That’s right, this would be highly blasphemous on our part!”
Abaddon could not say he hadn’t somewhat expected this reaction.
But he was not going to budge on this point.
If these men were going to become part of his specialized army, there were certain traits that he was looking for.
Abaddon brought a hand up to his head and the blood that had congealed on his horns began to wiggle.
It returned to a liquid state before jumping into his palmed taking the form of a regular blood-red crown.
“Here, hold this.” Abaddon said as he casually tossed the crown over his shoulder.
“AH!”
Kristina dove to catch the priceless crown of the king and let out a relieved sigh when she did not let such a treasure fall to the ground.
Abaddon held out his hand and a ball of purple fire formed within.
Casually throwing it into the air, the fire formed a dark purple cage that enclosed all of the vampires within.
“In this space, I am no longer your king, or your ruler. I am simply someone you must impress using everything that you have.” Abaddon didn’t draw any weapons, as this was really intended to be no more than light sparring.
He simply stood motionlessly in one spot, seemingly full of openings and yet no one sought to come near him.
“This…”
“I don’t know…”
“Would it truly be alright?”
By this point, Abaddon had begun to grow a bit irritated and his body soon reflected that.
“Fine… You don’t want to fight your king? Then you can fight a monster instead.”
The vampires watched in horror as Abaddon suddenly peeled off his shirt before his body exploded with dark energy.
Kristina recognized what was about to happen and her whole body began to tremble unconsciously.
In her very long life, there was very little that had ever made her truly afraid.
However, the horrifying memory of the day that she first saw Abaddon’s demonic form was more than enough to terrify her beyond belief.
Even if he was not actively imbuing her mind with fear, after experiencing it once before, she would never be able to behave normally in his presence again.
The same applied to anyone else who was stricken by his nasty little ability.
Abaddon’s body grew to a staggering seven feet tall as his muscles exploded with power.
An extra set of arms sprung free just below the originals, looking equally as powerful.
A third eye opened up in the middle of his forehead and he grew additional dark curved horns that pointed high into the sky.
The demon held out his hand and beckoned the crowd forward.
“I will not ask again. Come.”
Even though they were feeling threatened by Abaddon’s monstrous new appearance, the unfriendly tone in which he gave his orders made them feel like they had no choice but to cooperate.
“Then I hope that you will forgive me for this, my king!”
One woman rushed forward, followed by another man at her side.
Both were highly strained warriors within the third stage of evolution, capable of giving almost any opponent a significant amount of trouble.
The pair appeared to be siblings and worked in perfect synchronization.
While the woman launched a sweeping kick at Abaddon’s legs from below, her brother came from up high with a flying axe kick.
Bang!
Boom!
The loud sounds of the attacks connecting led many to believe that their king would have suffered some damage.
However, all were surprised to see that Abaddon had remained relatively unfazed.
He simply raised one arm to block the kick from overhead, and did not even bother to block the kick from below at all.
But both siblings were now reeling as they took massive leaps backward to regroup.
“His skin is…” The sister began. 𝒪𝚟xt.𝒞𝗈
“Unbelievably hard…” The brother finished.
Both of the siblings felt like they’d just kicked into a brick wall, and their legs were still vibrating from the attack.
“I applaud you for being the first to step forward.” Abaddon said honestly. “Your eagerness is commendable, but still…”
Suddenly, the body of the massive demon became a blur as he disappeared from where he stood.
The twins barely had a moment to react before they were suddenly grabbed by their legs and held upside down in the air.
“I require a bit more from my army than eagerness. You must have endurance as well.”
Before either of them realized what was happening, Abaddon had whirled them around in the air, and slammed them face first into the sandy ground.
BOOM!
Both siblings lay in the dirt unmoving, and it was unclear whether or not they had blacked out from the pain of his attack, or full exposure to the burning sand.
But Abaddon’s guess was that it was probably both.
“HAAA!”
Abaddon narrowly avoided a powerful punch to his spine from another muscled warrior and did a backflip into the air.
“One who has taken my blood could never surprise me, and if you could, screaming like that would certainly be an idiotic decision.”
Boom!
Crack!
Abaddon used two of his arms to chop the neck of the roaring brute, crushing his trachea and sending him into dreamland along with the twins.
Before the man had even hit the dirt, Abaddon had landed gracefully back on the ground and was staring at a group of ten warriors who were clustered together closely.
‘It’s good that they’re finally taking this seriously.’ He thought with a smile.
The dragon did not wait for them to approach and instead met them halfway.
“You’ll have to forgive us for this, my king!”
“Don’t expect us to be polite!”
“I will apologize afterwards!”
The number of attackers continued to increase for Abaddon and he found himself having a small bit of fun.
Groups of ten, became twenty, and then thirty
Using only his martial arts, Abaddon either avoided attacks or took them head on before dishing out retaliation of his own.
A solid kick, a swift chop or a bone breaking punch was enough to drop most men to their knees and lose consciousness.
There were a few stars that continued to get up no matter how much Abaddon brutalized them and it was these individuals that impressed him the most.
Even if he was not currently at the height of his power, it did not make it any less impressive that they had lasted so long.
After forty minutes, he had only traded blows with around two hundred of his men.
Out of those two hundred, only seventy five were able to get back to their feet and there were still around 100 that he had not hit at all.
They were quickly approaching the time limit of one hour, so Abaddon smiled wryly when he realized that he was going to have to cheat a bit if he wanted to get a chance to test everyone here.
As he kneed another warrior directly in the face, he warned all of the soldiers present that things were about to get much more difficult.
“I applaud you for your efforts thus far, but here is where the true test begins!”