After the millions of soldiers drank Abaddon’s blood, it was time to begin.
Closing his eyes and sitting on the ground, he concentrated on all of the new connections he could feel starting to form, and he began to mold each one.
“What is he doing…?” Yara asked.
“Ah, father can’t just give them his blood so that they can transform like when they became demons. To become a true dragon requires alteration of the very soul.” Gabbrielle explained.
“W-Won’t that be difficult? Can he do that??” she asked curiously.
This time, Thea answered.
She pointed to the green haired woman that no one had ever seen before, and they watched with wide eyes as she miraculously grew a pair of green horns on her head.
“These are a bit heavy so I usually like to hide them… I suppose this new body will take more getting used to.” Sabine said with a sigh.
“I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced? You are Thea’s..?”
“I am her guardian spirit, Sabine.” The green haired woman bowed respectfully at Yara who was smiling wryly.
“Guardian spirit? Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”
“S-She is just my guardian spirit, nothing more!” Thea was holding both of her unconscious wives in her arms and she nearly dropped them when she heard her Grandmother’s tone.
Mira, Apophis, and Gabbrielle were all looking at their big sister strangely.
Usually she acted quite a bit bolder with pretty women, yet now she almost seemed to be somewhat afraid.
They silently wondered about what could have caused this monumental change of attitude.
Apophis looked at his mothers for potential guesses but… they were currently indisposed at the moment.
Ever since Abaddon had showed up with his new face and body, they remained firmly locked in place and frozen.
Even now, their eyes were solely focused on his figure that was sitting criss crossed on the ground a few yards away.
He wasn’t even sure that they had remembered to blink in all of this time.
Usually he found their behavior rather embarrassing but as of right now, he didn’t feel like that.
Today it just felt.. sweet.
‘I am glad that they all love each other so passionately.’ He thought.
While Apophis was staring at his parents in a fond and concerned nature, Lailah’s mother Sei was looking down at the blood that had landed on her body.
Since she had been locked in place for so long, Gabbrielle walked up to her calmly and engaged her in conversation.
“You are curious about something?”
“Hm? A-Ah, yes… I suppose you could say I am.” She admitted. “There is… a great deal of magical power coming from this blood… Has it always been this potent?”
“No, this is new.” Gabbrielle admitted.
Previously, Abaddon’s blood had a simple ‘one time only’ effect.𝑂𝑽𝐞xt.𝑶𝗆
If ingested by someone weaker than him, they would be turned into a demon hybrid or a pure blooded sex demon if they were human.
But no matter how many times they drank it afterwards, they would not gain any additional benefits.
Unless you were a vampire like Seras or Audrina, and then you atleast got to enjoy the satisfaction of enjoying one of a kind blood of which there was no comparison.
But now, that was no longer the case.
Not only would it act as the catalyst to create true dragons, but it would also provide continuous boosts in strength through repeated consumption.
Provided that it was fresh of course.
In addition, his blood had the potential to revolutionize potion making, medicinal production, and even magical potency.
However if someone unsavory drank his blood, their bodies would break down entirely.
The potential for it’s use, as well as the downsides to taking it, were rather large.
“But that’s not what you really want ask, is it?” Gabbrielle said.
Sei flinched and stared at her grandaughter in surprise.
It was only now that she remembered Lailah’s words to her, about how Gabbrielle was very sweet and pure in addition to her surprising maturity.
Smiling in defeat, she let her gaze drop to the ground.
“I want to take this.. but I do not know if it would be right for me to do so. I suppose you know I wasn’t a very good mother to Lailah, but I honestly want to do better… I want to change..
I know that if I take this, I will become something like that man’s kin, and by an extension I will get to be around more, but.. I don’t want to selfishly force myself on her… I… want her to want me around.”
Sei hadn’t actually had enough time to talk to Lailah and tell her everything that she wanted going forward.
Which also meant that she didn’t know if her daughter would object to having her around.
But based on the last conversation they’d had… she figured she had a pretty good initial guess.
Gabbrielle’s red eyes stared unflinchingly at her grandmother for what felt like a long time.
Sei wasn’t sure what she could possibly thinking, until her granddaughter gently took her hand with her own.
Lifting up Sei’s hand to her mouth, Gabbrielle made her lick of some of the blood that had landed on her knuckle.
“When you wake up, we will ask her together.”
Sei couldn’t even respond before her body started to heat up and her eyelids became heavy.
As she lost the strength to hold herself up, the last thing she saw was Gabbrielle holding out her arms to catch her.
Meanwhile, Yara was stroking Asmodeus’ scarred face lovingly as she watched the sea of sleeping people being transformed by her son.
“I do not know what you or I have done to deserve such a blessing, my dear. But our son is so much more special than we could have ever dreamed.”
“Indeed he is.”
“!”
Suddenly, a voice Yara would never mistake came from right beside her ear.
In the form of an ethereal spirit, her father Helios had appeared as good as new.
There was no longer a gaping hole in his chest, and he was smiling warmly in a way that few people had ever seen.
It was a sight she missed more than anything.
And when she remembered the last time she saw him alive, she felt her heart clench in terrible pain.
“Father.. how did you…?”
Helios sighed and looked at Jadaka’s broken weapon that Abaddon had left lying on the ground.
“Poor judgement I suppose..”
If he was honest, his perspective of the situation wasn’t all that bad.
Upon having his soul absorbed into the strange gem on the pommel, he was introduced to the other true dragons inside.
Their fates were undoubtedly much worse than his, as they had been inside that sword for a drastically long time, floating with no purpose.
It was a sheer miracle that they were still sane.
Yara noticed that her father was now staring up at the other dragon ghosts in the sky and she realized there was something strange about them being here.
“How was Jadaka able to bring them to this world? I thought godlike beings weren’t allowed here.”
“They aren’t, but we are already dead, daughter. Therefore we do not fall under the jurisdiction of Asherah, we are the burden of the death gods now. “
Rather than give Jadaka live dragons, Jaldabaoth entrusted him with these deceased souls so that they could easily be slipped into this world without issue.
And since they were bound to the sword, they would not dissipate and could be called freely at anytime.
But now that Jadaka’s sword was broken, the oldest ones had already begun to break apart and were being called to the afterlife.
However, they were still watching Abaddon before they left.
A scene like this… it would likely never be recreated again.
“He is truly something.” Helios muttered.
“Are you proud of your grandson?”
“I am… I feel much better about leaving Antares in his hands.”
Yara felt that she may have misheard her father and she pinched herself just to be certain.
“Father.. you will pass the throne to Abaddon?”
“I will indeed. Are you jealous?”
“N-No! But I did not believe I would ever see the day that you would step down.”
“Ha! I did not step down, I was killed, my Yara. But it is fine. While I am resting in the afterlife, I know that your son will lead our people to the brightest future imaginable.”
Yara froze like a deer in headlights as she stared at her father’s ghost. “D-Don’t make those jokes like that. Abaddon can resurrect you, you know this.”
Unfortunately, the golden dragon shook his head.
“There is no need. I will journey to the underworlds and find Iori and my wives… all three of them. Together… we will spend time together in the ways that we never did while we were alive.”
Tears immediately began to fall from Yara’s violet eyes. “Y-You can’t! I-I still need you, I-I still have so much that I want to do with you!”
Helios only rarely told his daughter no, but this was unfortunately one of those instances.
“My daughter, look at all you have here.”
Helios pointed to the three people sleeping on her lap; her husband Asmodeus, and her two new adoptive daughters; Malenia and Kanami.
Her grandchildren were also around her, either tending to their spouses or trying to break their mothers out of their Abaddon induced trances.
“You cannot follow us down this road, and you have long grown past the age where you need us.”
“T-That’s not true! I-“
“It is true, and that’s okay. It means that I’ve done my job as a parent, with or without your mother at my side. Be strong, and realize that just because we are apart does not mean that you will never see us again.
Just follow your son, and I am sure that we will meet one day through his travels. After all, this war of his is bound to take him a great many places.”
Helios was always a doting father, but he had never spoken to his daughter as compassionately and kindly as he was now.
It made his words that much more impactful, and this goodbye so much more bitter.
Yara could barely hold her tears and nod silently as a show of acceptance.
Helios felt his heart swell with pride, and he placed his hand atop his daughter’s head just like when she was a little girl.
And even though he was intangible, she could swear that she felt the warmth of his hand once again.
“I’ll see you again, daughter. Know always that your family loves you, above and below.”
Yara watched her father dissentigrate right before her very eyes, and her heart tightened in her chest. “I-I will see all of you again, I promise..!”
Before Helios dissipated, he looked back at his meditating grandson a few feet away.
“Tell the boy and his family that I loved them as well.. also, that I am sad we never got to have that duel.”
As the last of his body started to fade away, she heard his voice being carried away by the wind for the final time.
“And… be sure to tell him that I could not have asked for a more worthy successor.”
Surprisingly, Yara found herself smiling at her father’s words of praise.
But that smile quickly became mixed with tears, and it was difficult to tell exactly what she was feeling in that moment.
Sadness because her father and brother were dead?
Or joy because they had lived?
It was all so unbelievably complicated.
She felt a warm hand on her shoulder, and she looked back to find old man Hajun standing behind her, with tears on his face as well.
Tiamat was also crying nearby, mourning the loss of the man she’d respected and served under for so long.
In a display of blinding brilliance, Yara smiled affectionately at the both of them as her own tears continued to fall.
“Why do the two of you look so sad? We’ll see him again.”
–
Abaddon wasn’t sure how long it would take to mold the souls of over thirty million people, but almost forty minutes later, he was finally done.
Letting out a sigh, he opened his strange eyes and immediately snickered at what he found waiting for him.
Staring back at him in the space between his crossed legs was a single black eye in a pool of shadows.
“Well what do you know? I was wondering when I would see one of you again.”