Once Abaddon realized where he had sensed this blood before, his rationality immediately returned to his mind and he developed a small headache.
If this man was Eris' family, he needed to learn the history behind her lineage.
"Thea dear, mind coming over for a moment?" Abaddon called.
His daughter did not even take half a second to appear at his side, still wearing the snowy white cloak that was made out of her grandfather.
When she saw the ruined face of the elf king up close, her cute face crinkled up in disgust.
"Father has become a berserker dragon just like mama."
Abaddon didn't need to ask to know that his daughter was talking about Seras, and he rolled his eyes at the unfair comparison.
"Don't be silly, she's worse than me."
"This guy's face begs to differ though?"
Abaddon had a hard time refuting that when he was holding a man's fragmented skull in his hand but nevertheless, he was certain that he was more rational than Seras.
...Right?
"Are you going to put clothes on anytime soon?"
"Hm?"
The dragon looked down and realized that his clothes had indeed been obliterated to shreds by the torrent of attacks from the spiritual beast, and now he was standing around stark naked.
It was a good thing the elves had already fainted from the pressure of his overwhelming malice, or else they would have seen his nude body and remembered it for the rest of their lives.
"Ah...heal him while I get dressed."
"Alright."
With the divine element, Thea had a very powerful healing ability.
If it was left to her, she could return Cypress' movie star good looks to him in no time.
Abaddon pulled out another outfit that was similar to the one he had before, but with a swirling red pattern across his chest instead of a simple black.
'I should have Camilla weave clothes out of my scales... make them indestructible.'
While Abaddon was having a million dollar idea, Thea held her hand over Cypress' face and started healing it bit by bit.
In under a few seconds, he was back to normal with only a minimal amount of scarring still visible.
"Wake him up."
Smack!
Thea slapped Cypress on the face a couple of times before the elf stirred awake, clearly a bit delirious from the previous ordeal.
"W-Wha..?"
As soon as he saw Abaddon with spattered blood across his cheeks, he remembered the nightmare he had just suffered through a few moments ago and his face went pale.
"If you want to live, I suggest that you answer all of my questions and do not make this more difficult than it needs to be. Don't open your mouth to say anything other than what I want to know. " Abaddon said calmly.
Cypress knew that Abaddon had talked about duality before, but this difference between the current him and the version from a few moments ago was rather shocking.
He wondered if his unique physiology as a hybrid made it so that he had a split personality.
But for now, he couldn't worry about such things and instead focused on trying to escape.
His spirits dispersed when he lost consciousness, so as of right now he was alone with no way to defend himself against an already overwhelming enemy.
Once he put some distance between them, he could call his creatures back.
Abaddon sensed Cypress' plentiful mana begin to swirl within his body and he knew that he was about to try to make a run for it.
"You are significantly more stupid than I thought."
Before the elven king could flee to a safe enough distance, dark chains covered in red miasma erupted from the shadows underneath him and bound his body together.
"W-What have you done?! What is happening to my-"
SNAP!
"Gahhh!!!"
Abaddon stomped on one of Cypress' shins hard enough to pulverize the bone.
"I told you not to say anything other than what I want to know, and you didn't listen. Let's not repeat that mistake again, yea?"
The elf looked pissed, but there wasn't much he could really do in this moment.
These chains were sucking away his mana like they were trying to get their college paid for, and his elven physiology meant he was nowhere near strong enough to break them.
There was his spiritual energy but... for some reason this magic seemed to counteract its effectiveness.
He was truly stuck with no way out of this situation.
"My wife Eris." Abaddon began. "Why do you share her blood?"
Cypress ground his teeth together as a revolting memory surfaced within his mind.
He didn't care if he died or was tortured, he would never dredge up such a shameful past.
"I share nothing with that filthy dark-!"
Cypress did not even get to finish insulting Eris before a tendril of liquid metal pierced his forehead, killing him instantly.
Abaddon looked at Thea out of the corner of her eye and saw a new expression on her face.
Tempers weren't uncommon in the Tathamet family, as almost everyone had lost theirs in at least one instance before. (Typically on the battlefield.)
But Thea was in that special class of Abaddon's family whom no one had ever seen angry before.
His little girl was playful, a bit flirtatious, and she had a very big heart.
Such a person didn't look right with a scowl on her face.
Thea seemingly recognized what she'd done and hurriedly retracted her gauntlet's weapon from the face of the elf.
"Ah, I-I'm sorry father! I just couldn't let him talk about-"
"It's alright, Thea." Abaddon delicately pressed their forehead's together to stop her from panicking.
"Your mother would be honored to know that you cherish her enough to defend her name. You have done nothing wrong."
Once she knew her father wasn't upset, Thea seemed to calm down a little bit. "But... we cannot learn about mother's heritage now, o-or the tree!"
This was indeed a problem, and Abaddon wracked his brain for any possible solution.
After mentally combing through his list of abilities, he realized that there was a way.
"...Let me try something."
"..Alright."
Abaddon held out a hand over Cypress' corpse and made a grasping gesture with his fingers.
The familiar wispy darkness of death magic swirled within his palm, and he pulled out the soul of the now deceased elven king.
Abaddon brought the small green ball up to his eye and inspected it curiously.
After a few seconds, he finally heard a echoing voice that was so eerily familiar.
"Y-You... You killed me..! You damned monsters! The heavens above have surely cursed this world by sending a plague like you to-"
Abaddon didn't need Cypress to retain any of his former ego, so he did the only logical thing.
Unfurling his wings from his back, he opened the multiple different eyes within their fleshy membrane.
Once he knew Cypress was 'looking' the eyes began to glow with a silvery white color, and Abaddon immediately noticed a change.
All of the resistance and hostility that was so prevalent within Cypress' soul a moment ago was sapped out in an instant.
Leaving behind only a docile and slightly delirious individual who could be molded just about however Abaddon wished.
"Elf, tell me what you know about my wife Eris. Why do you share her blood?"
Like a computer scouring the internet, the soul took a moment to sift through the contents of it's own memories before it gave an answer.
"I do not know of anyone named Eris, but I do remember the last time I saw a dark elf was over three hundred years ago. My parents had given birth to it, and were horrified.
They told our people their child died upon delivery and they put it on a boat and pushed it out to sea, hoping that it would drown."
Eventually, Cypress' parents ended up killing themselves from the guilt that came from giving birth to a disgraceful creature like a dark elf, leaving their son all alone.
It was no wonder that his hatred for dark elves became particularly potent.
After hearing that story, Abaddon felt like he had more questions than answers.
The earliest story that Eris had told him about her past was when she was already around Thea's age.
So how was it possible that a newborn survived not only being set out at sea, but starvation as well?
Eris never talked about her childhood and for good reason but... he was starting to feel like he should press her just a bit more for stories.
"Enough of this... tell me about the tree and it's connection to the spirit realm." Abaddon decided that for now it was best to focus on only the objective in front of him.
"The tree is a doorway to the spirit realm, it is a land of transcendence, where only the purest and most powerful of elements spirits reside. For eons, it has been the duty of the elven people to protect these holy grounds from any who would try to exploit or ruin them, and the elven kings form contracts with the elemental spirits inside to aid us in this duty."
Abaddon nodded absentmindedly, staring at the enormous tree towering above them.
"How do I enter?"
"You can't."
"Try again."
"I speak no falsehoods. Only those blessed by the divine, or with a high affinity for spirit magic may tread inside. I do not know what you are, but given the way that the spirits fear you so terribly, I know that you have neither of those things."
Abaddon growled as he clenched his fists together angrily.
So there was no way for him to enter?
Then how was he supposed to become a spirit dragon??
"Wait..."
His eyes landed on Cypress' dead body a few feet away and he began to formulate an idea.
"I presume that you had a high affinity for sprit magic, yes?"
"...I did." Cypress admitted.
Abaddon smirked as he reached toward the corpse and plunged his hand into the chest of the elf.
Pulling out his heart, he swiftly took a bite without batting an eye.
He felt some kind of force trying to meld within his being but it felt... unharmonious.
It was like he was trying to create a smooth blend of oil and water.
"Father? Did it work?" Thea asked.
"...Yes, seems like it." He said.
At the end of the day, his goal of acquiring an affinity for spirit magic had been completed but... he wasn't too confident he would be able to use this in a fight.
At least not now anyway.
"You have spiritual affinity... How?" Cypress asked in shock.
"None of your business, elf."
Abaddon snapped his fingers and all of the ice around the forest started to melt away within seconds.
He held up the soul and pointed to the big tree in front of them.
"Now, show me how to enter the spirit realm."
"I..."
Finally, Cypress seemed to show some signs of hesitation as if he knew that he wasn't supposed to reveal this information.
But once Abaddon's mind control had taken root, there was little that he could do to fight it when he was alive, much less dead.
"I understsand. Do exactly as I instruct."
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