Chapitre 83: Inhuman Taint
There are dark forces in this world that move history behind the scenes. They wield power far from the common eye and wage war in the shroud of an unknown battleground— they are secret guardians as they like to refer to themselves.
The more unpopular term is Shadow Organizations.
Every member of the Allied Kingdoms worth their salt has one of their own.
For the elves, they have the Ratatoskr.
And for the Empire, they have the Imperial Bureau, the Vampires, and the more secretive imperial knights of the emperor.
Though the elves are new to this kind of warfare, they seem to adapt very well and proof of this is their early contact with various organizations of similar nature.
From what Ratatoskr can infer from earlier investigations, there has been a boom of rumors since the 'Moonlight Rain' incident.
They trace the rumors from all sorts of shady caves of agents of unknown origins. Only recently did Ratatoskr learn that these 'agents' are vampires through deducing information from the gathered data and the news from their Raven.
Through the records of Gaia, the elves learn of a mysticism ritual that allows them to bond with beasts.
The Raven, an avian that can perform mimicry and is relatively smart is the first creature to successfully attune with an elf.
Varen as the first to find success in the bonding, eagerly throws himself to work and training. Time and time again, he increases his ravens until he reaches his limitation— twenty-three ravens in total.
With the cooperation of his subordinates, his efficiency skyrockets to incredible degrees allowing him of various information that should not be available to him.
Learning of the vampire's schemes is one of his biggest boons.
Apprehending Angelica is just the start.
"Vampire, is it? I find the name too fancy... For the sake of accuracy, I will call you bloodsucker from now on."
Angelica hisses at him, and to his surprise, she appears to possess strength at least triple or quadruple of a normal human.
"Die," The vampire's right arm contorts unnaturally, and hits Varen while enduring through the pain. "You shall perish!"
Varen drives his dagger at her skull, but seemingly unaffected by it, the vampire forces her contorted arm. She swings her right arm with force connecting cleanly with a crunch to Varen's sides.
Feeling two of his ribs broken, Varen bites off the Life Pill in between his tooth allowing him respite from the pain.
Life Pill, a derivative of Life Potion works little to his injuries, but it is enough that it alleviates the pain.
Wisley is no longer in the lounge and has long made his quick escape through the escape passage.
"I will drain your blood!" Angelica screams with a grated pitch as she removes the dagger embedded in her skull.
She plays with the dagger with an intoxicated smile, while the wound in her skull heals at a visible speed.
Varen hides in a corner.
The vampire sees this as an act of futility and weakness. "I can smell you."
Suddenly.
Steel bolts find their mark on her flesh, penetrating her bones. Angelica screeches in audible pain, her flailing and crying create a ruckus that resounds brutally while Varen takes cover.
From the ceiling, and the four walls, steel bolts fly with impressive accuracy.
Just outside the lounge that serves as Wisley's secret meeting area are a bunch of elves wielding heavy crossbows with firepower strong enough to pierce a five-inch thick wall.
The quadrant lounge has a contingent of elves on each side, plus a single contingent from the roof.
Accompanying each contingent is a single raven. It is Varen's raven, and through its mimicry, he gives his order to shoot.
"Fire," The raven voices out in its chirpy dreadful sound while gesturing with its beak where to release their arrows. "Center of the lounge. Standing and not moving." The raven adds.
The steel bolts go flying. This time, with iron chain links on its end. It connects splendidly and pins the vampire on where she stands.
Angelica is pale from all of the bleeding. Multiple bolts embed in her skin, and few manage to cleanly pass through her flesh missing the bones, still the most gnarly of all are the steel bolts with chains.
Varen gets out of his hiding spot and observes the creature. Her eyes have veins forming crows feet, and more veins showing from her skin.
It is an ugly sight.
Despite this, there is an impression of a beautiful woman's face behind her monstrous appearance. Varen can imagine from the contours of her face.
To every cardinal direction, Varen has a raven watching for him. Since bonding with the ravens, Varen has become capable of eyesight albeit in an indirect sense.
"Our alchemist will be very interested in your anatomy. I would love to indulge him, but I will have to extract every bit of information I can out of you."
"You will not be getting anything out of me, mortal!"
"Kid me not. I know you Angelica, you are a slave, a pathetic toy to a bloodsucker who fancies himself a lord. And now... you are my toy..."
Varen professionally proceeds with 'extracting' information from the vampire by twisting the steel bolt embedded in her shoulders.
"Aaaagh~!"
"Tell me. What is a vampire?"
"... Hiss..."
"I see that you have a very strong vitality."
Angelica lunges with force still holding Varen's dagger from their initial exchange. She can feel her muscles tugging and shredding.
Lightly backing off with a bounce on his steps, Varen easily dodges the ambush. He mercilessly strikes the outstretched elbow with another dagger idly lying from his waist.
The vampire's outstretched hand losses function and flops to the side dropping the dagger to the floor.
"I take it you have a monstrous amount of vitality surpassing the labels of merely very strong."
With dual daggers, Varen methodologically dismantles the bloodsucker inflicting the greatest pain imaginable.
Varen is new to torture, but he acts quite proficiently on touching just the right spot with the tip of his daggers to inflict great pain maybe all thanks to the other four pairs of eyes adding to his observation. The blind blonde elf is no longer blind.
Ravens perch on his shoulders, head, and arm while he tortures the vampire which creates a menacing scene not for the faint of heart.
"How dare you, mortal!? You will pay harshly for these transgressions. My lordship shall destroy you and dominate your kind!"
"Too noisy," Reaching the limits of his patience, Varen ends up cutting her tongue. "You are so uncooperative. But that is fine, we have other uses for you. It is good that you heal and regenerate."
Using both of his daggers, Varen throws himself on the grueling task of peeling off the face of the vampire.
"Uaaaghh!" Angelina cries with fury as her tears mix with blood.
"Now, this is just sad. Your dead skin becomes ash which is inconvenient."
"Huff, huff~" Angelina breathes with difficulty.
Her eyes are unfocused, and her shoulders are trembling maybe from too much pain or maybe from the budding fear of the creature the world refers to as 'elves'.
"Fortunately, I have come prepared."
"No. No. No. NO!" The vampire cries pitifully as she watches Varen arrange all manners of potions.
It is no longer torture at this point. In fact, Angelica might prefer it being torture instead at least that way she has something to hold to so that she won't crack.
But it is not torture at all.
It is simply Varen trying to harvest her face.
The session continues with barbarism.
For some time, Wisley visits to clean the place of blood and offer aid. He resists vomiting and running away. Varen ignores the human most of the time but asks him for something if he needs it.
"I still have some Life Potion, some adhesive, and embalming liquid. I cannot imagine myself doing it, but I am making progress."
Varen nonchalantly comments as he sets up ten face skins from Angelica. It is sick, disgusting, and hateful, that even a vampire will tremble at the sight of the operation.
"If Allenwood is here, he will be able to do it better and save you from a lot of pain. Sadly, we cannot risk bringing you to the Dark Forest. We cannot also risk bringing Allenwood outside the Dark Forest."
Angelica's crimson eyes are despondent. Instead of brilliant red eyes, her eyes have become so dull it is losing its luster.
"W-what a-re you going t-o do with my faces..."
In a casual attitude, Varen explains. "We have pinpointed several bases, you call them alcoves, correct? We will destroy your vampire alcoves with your face as an opening move."
Angelica doesn't even offer a reply as she realizes how terribly fucked up they are.
"Oh," Varen claps his hands coming to remember an important reminder. "I will also be needing your hair."
Proceeding to brutally peel off her hair from the scalp, Varen carefully creates a new set of wigs.
As Angelica silently cries in pain, she comes to believe how self-deprecating it is for humans to refer to the vampires as 'Inhuman Taint' when the real taint is somewhere else.
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Alfir
Alfir Brutal and scary elves back in action.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone