While some were hesitating, a gulping sound rang out followed by the dropping of an empty vial. The Dark Elf drank the contents without even a moment of hesitation.
She was right, the demon had already declared that he would give them power in return for their souls. Since that was the case, the demon had no reason to plot against them who were already his pawns.
GULP… GULP…
All the other demihumans too downed the contents of their vial without thinking anything further.
After all of them drank the liquid, they realised that the crimson content was indeed blood and couldn't help but cough a few times.
However, why would the demon feed them blood? Just when the question popped inside their heads, the answer also came to them at the same instant.
CRICK… CRACK… peculiar noises started coming from their bodies and their muscles and bones start twisting in unbendable ways. All the veins in their body burst apart and blood was flowing out from all of their orifices.
There was so much blood flowing out that it quickly formed a small pool in the cell.
All of the demihumans here had suffered various sorts of torture and torment before coming to this place. As such, they were used to the pain; however, compared to the agony of having their entire body remodelled from the inside out and having their blood drained till the very last drop, all the pain that they had suffered earlier, amounted to nothing.
In front of such an outlandish pain, the weak spirits of the demihuman slaves quickly crumbled and all of them lost consciousness.
This was a trial for them, anyone that could pass it would be born anew.
.
.
"Hohh… so they drank our blood huh, it's amazing that all of them managed to survive".
"Un, they are really amazing"
How long had passed, from his blurry consciousness, the weretiger could hear the voice of some children.
"Hehe, if they couldn't even survive our blood it only meant that they were worth so much. But since they did, it is worthwhile to add them to our family" the mischievous voice of a boy sounded.
"Let's take three each, Maybell as your brother I will allow you to make the first choice"…
"Alright," the other voice was soft and shy.
'Kuhh… what is happening?' the weretiger thought as he tried to move his body. However, he realised that his body was extremely heavy right now, not only that but severe pain assaulted him every time he even tried to move a muscle.
But that was not important right now, who were these voices that were echoing inside their cell?
The weretiger slowly opened his eyes with much difficulty and at that moment, he saw the figure of a little girl slowly approaching closer to him.
"Shaerra..!?!"
At that instant, the image of the girl overlapped with the image of his daughter. But very soon, he was able to spot out the differences.
Although the two girls looked similar in age and even had the same height and figure they were nonetheless distinctly different. For starters, the girl in front of him had such dark red eyes, that it looked like they were made of blood.
The ears on her head were not real, but due to an accessory she was wearing and she did not have any tail. Apart from that she also looked very different. Additionally, she lacked other features that would make her a member of the weretiger race.
The weretiger was aware of one thing, the girl in front of him was not Shaerra. Also, the fact that she was here, meant one thing... she was sent here by the demon.
"My subordinates are going to visit you all in a while and bestow you with a very very special power" he recalled the words of the demon.
'So this girl was one of the subordinates of the demon'.
While the weretiger was busy having his own thoughts, the little girl stopped a few inches away from him. It needs to be mentioned that as a member of the weretiger race, he was huge. Even while sitting, the girl in front of him did not even reach his chest.
Even if discounting his size, he still looked scary. Though it didn't look like such things mattered to that girl, she had an unfazed expression from start to end.
The girl after stopping in front of him, pointed her finger and declared boldly "I choose you… from this point on you will be my, Maybell Bloodrite's family".
The weretiger was shocked, it was not because of the girl's haughty tone and bold words or the fact her blood coloured eyes gave him a heavy sense of suppression but because she called him her family.
'Family' one cannot tell how heavy these words were for him. He who had lost all of his family, his village and was transported to a foreign land, the word was a sore spot and at the same time the most precious to him.
As such, when the weretiger heard those words, he became momentarily stunned.
"Huh?" he only came back to his senses when he saw the cute little girl suddenly open her mouth and bite his neck with her little white fangs.
BADUMP… at that moment, he heard his heart suddenly stop beating and his vision getting covered in darkness. He lost consciousness.
----
Maybell watched as the blood in the surrounding suddenly float up and cover the weretiger in a coffin of blood. After the first weretiger, Maybell moved on to the other demihumans and declared the very same thing she did to the weretiger.
After she was done with her pick, she giddily returned back to the side of her brother.
"Two weretigers and one catkin. You really like cats don't you" Theodore commented as he saw his twin sister only pick those that have cat or cat like ears.
"Un, I like kitties" Maybell admitted touching the ear accessory on her head.
Theodore smiled at his adorable sister and stepped forward. With Maybell taking her pick, only the Elf, Dark Elf and the Cienthrope remained.
"Fron now on, you three will be my, Theodore Bloodrite's family. I bestow you the power of the Vecna".
Theodore declared and bared his fangs. He bit them all in their necks and just like all the other demihumans, they too were encased in a coffin of their blood.
Done with his task, the boy nodded his head and along with his sister, disappeared from the place. The next time they appeared, they were already on the Main Floor.
Knock... Knock… the twins knocked on the door and without waiting for the person inside to give their permission, they rushed inside.
"Master… Masterrr!!" the twins beamed.
Seeing them charge in, Simon flashed a helpless smile and put down the document on his hand.
"You two are here, then does that mean that the task I have given you is completed?" he asked pampering the twins a little.
"Un, we did as master told us and bestowed them the power of Vecna" Maybell replied hugging the snowman plushie.
"What?!!" the moment Simon heard that, he couldn't help but get up from his seat.
Simon walked around his study, bent down to match his eye level with the twins and asked them in confirmation.
"Did you say Vecna?".
"Yes master" the twin affirmed.
"This…" Simon's eyes shook and he couldn't help but reason "Bestowing the power of a Vecna… wouldn't they die? You could have just given them the power of Elder".
"Hehe, master does not need to be so worried. At first, Maybell and I thought of bestowing them with the powers of Elder or below. However, when we saw their bodies assimilating with our blood to such a high degree, we couldn't help but change our mind".
"It is extremely difficult to create a Vecna, they not only need to have an immense will and a high level of resilience to go through the Baptism of the Shadows, but they also need to have a high level of compatibility with our blood".
"Un, big brother is right. When we saw those demihumans adapt so well to our blood, we couldn't help but wonder if a Vecna could be created" Maybell added after her brother.
Hearing their words, Simon didn't know what to say anymore. They bestowed the power of Vecna to the demihumans while fully knowing how abysmally rare the chances of creating one were.
Heck, even one Elder emerging from those six demihumans would be a miracle. He couldn't believe that the twins gave all the six, the power of Vecna.
In Simon's mind, he was sure that all six of the demihumans would die after all, not just anyone can handle a Vecna's power. The twin should be aware of that, but for them to still go ahead and still do it could only mean that either they saw something within those demihumans or they made an error in their recklessness.
Whatever the case may be, there was nothing he could do now that the dice had been cast. He could only hope that the outcome would be in their favour.
He played with the twins for a while before Simon started busying himself with his work. After he was done with the task of a dungeon master for the day, he teleported to the [Training Floor] and started his training on magic control.
Of course, his control was as bad as ever. All of the fireballs that he cast, had varying output of mana into them.
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